Third party publisher support for the Wii has been the subject of much debate and speculation. Nintendo's consoles have enjoyed less support from third parties than the competing consoles, because Nintendo has been less willing to work with third parties on their terms.

While many publishers are now interested in releasing titles for the Wii, there is a new and substantial impediment to successful third party titles. Games will have to be designed around the Wii. In the past, it was easier for third parties to offer titles for Nintendo's consoles, without targeting that console in particular. Now, it will be a lot harder to do that.

A Long, Slow Decline

Nintendo's position in hardware has been declining for well over a decade now. In fact, the zenith of Nintendo's fortunes in the console business was the NES itself (launched in 1985). It's been downhill since then. Nintendo launched the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1991, the Nintendo 64 (N64) in 1996, and the GameCube in 2001.

Here are the worldwide unit sales for these four systems as of March 31st of this year:

NES: 61.9 million

SNES: 49.1 million

N64: 32.9 million

GameCube: 20.9 million

That's not a pretty trend. To add injury to injury, the number of games sold per console had been steadily declining until the GameCube dramatically reversed that trend.

Here are the number of games sold per console for each of the four systems:

NES: 8.08 games

SNES: 7.72 games

N64: 6.84 games

GameCube: 9.05 games

GameCube

The above GameCube number is especially interesting, because sales of GameCube games in the Americas has been extraordinarily strong considering its modest installed base relative to what previous Nintendo consoles had enjoyed.

The GameCube has performed much better in the U.S. than it has elsewhere. The Americas account for 58.37% of worldwide GameCube unit sales while Japan accounts for merely 19.14% of worldwide sales. In the Americas, the number of games sold per GameCube is approximately 10; while in Japan it is only 7.

While a difference of 10 games per system to 7 games per system may not sound that important, it is a far greater difference in the number of games sold per system between geographic regions than exists with any other current Nintendo platform. As a result, the Americas account for nearly two out of every three games sold for the GameCube.

Nintendo DS

At first, it appears the situation is reversed with the Nintendo DS. Japan accounts for more than 4 out of every 10 sales of both DS games and the handheld platform itself. However, at the beginning of this year, the ratio of software to hardware sales was still a bit higher in the Americas than it was in Japan.

Game Boy Advance

Nintendo's Game Boy sales have always been pretty impressive. The Game Boy Advance, which launched in 2001, has sold more than 75 million units and more than 325 million games. That doesn't include sales of the various Game Boys of the 20th century (the original launched in 1989) which have sold well over 100 million units and 500 million games.

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