What the Future Holds For 3rd Parties - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 11 May 2007 / 1,241 Views

Last generation, the highest selling (30) 3^rd party games were on PS2. The number one title of all last generation, GTA: San Andreas, was 3^rd party and for PS2. More surprising however, is that among 1^st party titles last generation, only 3 titles from Sony, 4 titles from Nintendo, and 2 titles from Microsoft have outsold the 30^th highest selling 3^rd party entry (Tony Hawk’s Underground at 3.5 million).

There were roughly 20 independent publishers last generation to make games that sold a million copies. Since then, Square & Enix have become one company, as have Sammy & Sega. Additionally, Namco owns a significant portion of Bandai. That leaves the current console world with the following companies to produce million selling games for the big three - EA, Square-Enix, Konami, Namco-Bandai, Atari, Sega-Sammy, Codemasters, Ubisoft, Capcom, Midway, Tecmo, THQ, Vivendi, Koei, Bethesda, Eidos, Activision, and LucasArts.

Looking at the present and future for third parties we see the following – uncertainty in who 3rd parties will support with the most games, and questions about which consoles will get the most ‘big’ games. This means publishers have less security in knowing how well a game will sell, but the potential for great games, since publishers need more return than usual on their investment. Compared to last generation, Microsoft and Nintendo have far more 3rd party exclsuives, while Sony appears to have lost a number of exclusives.

When looking at recent game announcements, it appears that much has changed. In recent weeks, Wii has received major support from EA and the big Japanese developers – obtaining games such as Rygar, Nights, Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, Soul Calibur Legends, Chocobo’s Dungeon, MySims, Boogie and Ghost Ryder. In contrast to last generation, 360 has received much better support from Capcom (Lost Planet, Dead Rising) & Namco, and is starting to get the support of Square-Enix (Last Remnant). Take Two, Ubisoft, Sega continue to bank heavily on the 360 as well, supporting it with the likes of Tom Clancy series, GTA, and Condemned 2. As for Sony, the company retains very close ties with Square-Enix, Konami, and EA. However, by offering a console similar to Xbox 360, and significantly different than Wii, PS3 is likely not to have the most exclusive games. Nonetheless, key titles such as Final Fantasy & Metal Gear Solid 4 remain exclusive to PS3. Additionally, it appears that EA has the most invested in PS3 success, which bodes well for Sony, since EA alone produced 1/3 of PS2’s million selling titles. With much yet to be determined and less domination likely on the hardware side, it is likely that no console will receive an overwhelming number of third party exclusives as the PS2 did. Given current market trends, it seems that games that need to sell well in Japan will (eventually) be primarily found on Wii, games that need to sell well in the West but are not graphically intense will be on all consoles, games that are online rich will be on 360, and games that benefit from motion sensing will be on Wii, while games that require super graphics, memory or AI will be found on 360 and PS3.

10 Comments

princess (on 19 February 2009)

NorthStar (on 21 May 2007)

i think 3rd parties will have exclusives but not be exclusive this time out. Wii will get some exclusives and some motion based ports of older games. but it remains to be seen if a 3rd party can get anywhere near 1st party sales on the Wii. I just don't think people bought a Wii for 3rd party games either. The PS3 has lost alot of exclusives but only one or two that really mattered as long as they keep Final Fantasy (the core game) and Metal Gear exclusive they should be fine with the addition of thier growing 1st and 2nd party games. I really think 360 has the most to lose with exclusives leaving where would the 360 be without Gears of War? The 360's lack of great 1st and 2nd Party titles might cause it to fall out of graces a bit.

bugmenot (on 17 May 2007)

I believe that while 1st party games didn't have much real influence in the last gen, they will become more prominent relative to 3rd parties in this one. This is thanks in part to a homogenizing of titles across platforms, but mostly down to high costs, meaning every 3rd party has become significantly more risk averse on high power systems. This means they take less experimental chances, which means they all target the same core audience with the same type of game which means markets shrink to hardcore audiences only. Therefore, the only sources of diversification which attracts the wider audiences are 1st party games (unafraid of failure and exclusive) and lowered costs attracting older 3rd party business models when they're smart enough to remember the other way worked.

unholygospel (on 15 May 2007)

u guys are wii-todded. whatever life the ps3 has, the 360 will breathe it too. its sad for Sony. they claimed total domination and changing game forever by pushing an uncharted format...betamax went and died, md went and died, umd is on its last breath...blu-ray...need i say more? third party titles are now going to work for their bread. its true, sony had more 3rd party titles giving peeps more of a variety so people bought the ps2 for that reason. unlike xbox that they only had one console selling game. nintendo pulled off a Sony when gamecube had no online support, mini optical disc format and losing all the exclusives third party games. so this is a good thing for the gamers but bad for the 3rd party industry...get off your lazy fat arses and make me good e-fin games!

misterd (on 14 May 2007)

Seems to me that its too soon to jump to any conclusions. The biggest selling console last time was the PS2, but a factor of a gazillion. I'm not a Sony fan, so I may be out of date here, but my understanding is that they don't have a whole lot of 1st party titles. If they did, and they were any good, or if Nintendo had won out last time, would this paradigm have still held?

Honestly I suspect it would have. I don't expect the same disparity for this generation, but I think that will give even more clout to 3rd parties.

Munkeh (on 14 May 2007)

Very true

Although haven't EA said that they made a mistake supporting the PS3 so heavily?

bugmenot (on 13 May 2007)

I would suggest that PS2 didn't have quite the level of exclusivity that was suggested. In the last generation Nintendo didn't receive any genuine exclusive support from any third party, and exceedingly poor levels of porting (inferior ports of child oriented PS2 games). While there was generally poor Japanese support from third parties for Xbox (though considering Onimusha, Silent Hill and DOA, still better than Gamecube), there was practically universal support from US Western developers by virtue of the West's propensity for making poor selling PC versions of games, combined with Xbox's PC roots. Of course it didn't help Xbox much. PS2 certainly didn't have 5 times the notable 3rd party exclusives, but it sold five times the systems. Nor did it have a particularly strong first party offering, considering Halo sold Xbox, and Smash Bros. sort of sold Gamecube.

Anyway, what I'm suggesting is that the quality of exclusive big game support hasn't really been such a big deal in the past at determining the monopolistic winner (though Japanese oriented games do have a fair bit of weight). Neither has power really been important factor. 1st party games only seem to be good for profitability and keeping systems afloat.

Rather it's been down more to system perception, support perception, and breadth of crappy third party games. If such is the case, then Wii is on very good track, and considering how the price puts off the cheapo crappy gamers that make up the bulk of the market, PS3 is on a poor one.

Finally I'd like to make two things clear: Sega are retarded, and Capcom are backstabbing bastards.

Erik Aston (on 12 May 2007)

Some highly interesting facts in there, but not a lot of great commentary or analysis compared to some of your stuff, Source.

DonWii (on 11 May 2007)

True that.

DKII (on 11 May 2007)

pssst Vivendi's in there twice ;)

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