Like this thread - Amir0x's original is where I cut my GAF teeth.
Its really two questions. Whether there is strong potential for third parties on the Wii, and whether they will take the opportunity. (Theres a subsidiary question, which is whether Nintendo should have done more for third parties in the early days but I dont find that particularly interesting as any answers just come with too much hindsight).
Third party potential on Wii
My particular hobbyhorses on this topic are in
this post
Nothing much seems to have changed since. In particular theres no evidence that third parties have grasped the nettle, and their approach seems to be governed by three misperceptions: that the Wii is underpowered; that the Wii audience is intractable and incomprehensible; and that the Wii will soon be replaced. All of these are wrong.
The Wii isnt underpowered for what its audience wants, only for what the developers (who geared up for HD systems) want. Its the audience that is important for sales.
The audience isnt intractable it is just a whole load of ordinary people. The problem the third parties have is their marketing departments are geared to marketing to gamers and have no knowledge of marketing to normal people like pretty well every marketing department everywhere else does.
The Wii will be around a long time. Claiming it wont be is just another excuse for not doing anything, like it will bomb (because its underpowered), it is a fad (because it sells well), it is just casuals (because the audience is growing in unexpected directions). Lame excuses the whole lot of them.
The potential is out there, it is ripe for the picking even now, and it is beyond belief that third parties are not taking advantage of it. It is not as if theres a whole lot of competition out there. Even Nintendo. Theres a whole load of areas that Nintendo doesnt go into.
Will anyone bite the bullet?
Probably not. There are too many mantras around that third party on Wii is doomed for the guys in suits to be persuaded, too many analysts still briefing against the Wii, too many shareholders not putting the right sort of pressure on their boards, too many people blowing smoke.
Even now there is enormous potential to expand the market, but I cant see it coming from the traditional third party companies unless they are persuaded to do so by others by educationists, by writers, by schools, lawyers, film-makers, artists, sportsmen, historians, scientists, tourist agencies and so on and so forth.
What happens next?
Well, theres the whole business of how much the market will fragment through Move and Kinect, so the HD twins become less of twins, theres the question of next time round whether third parties will be able to so blithely ignore Nintendo, theres the shift from living room to handheld (and the strong potential of the porn market on 3DS), there's the enormous uncertainty of 'what the fuck will Nintendo do next?' (hey, you don't get that feeling from MS or Sony do you?).
And of course, there is the possibility, however slim it may seem, that some third party somewhere will make an absolute killing on Wii through taking its potential seriously. If one of them does, especially if it is an outsider, then maybe the rest of them will hang their heads in shame instead of hiding behind excuses.
