Today, we learn that the venerable Wii, supposed anathema to third party publishers the world over, has in fact sold more third party software in its first 20 months than either the PS3 or the Xbox 360.
The news was first pushed out by Nintendo, and was rightfully criticized as company spin. Then, GameDaily did a little legitimate journalism and dug into the data, and had NPD swoop in for the win.
[W]hen GameDaily BIZ contacted The NPD Group for more data, we discovered that for the first 20 months on the market for each console the Wii comparatively sold several million more units of third-party software in the U.S. than either the Xbox 360 or PS3. More specifically, the Wii sold 33 million units of third-party software in its first 20 months, while the Xbox 360 sold 29 million units and the PS3 sold 20 million units.
Oh, and when you remove Wii Play from those numbers, the third party ratio shoots up to about 62% of total software. It’s not the 80% that the PS3 or Xbox 360 enjoy, but then again I’d rather have Nintendo first party IP balancing things out with a 50-50 or 60-40 ratio on my console any day of the week.
So, tell me this morning, what’s left in the Wii hate bag? Wii Music? Something else? Seriously, I got nothing.