Exclusive: Third Parties Fare Well On Most-Wanted Wii List

Wii Sports Resort, Nintendo's followup to the pack-in game Wii Sports, handily claims the title of most-wanted Wii game among the system's user base, according to data from research group OTX shared with Gamasutra. But while a first-party Nintendo game took the top slot -- and an essentially second-party game, Sega's Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, took the second -- third parties have reason to be optimistic on the platform, which is frequently seen as somewhat inhospitable to other publishers. With Nintendo's volume of high-profile Wii software announcements lower than it has been at other times in the console's life, 17 of the remaining 18 slots are occupied by offerings from major Western third parties like Electronic Arts and Activision. In fact, EA's pledges to devote more resources to the platform may be paying off: the publisher is responsible for more than half of the entire list. Its nearest competitor, Activision, has only four. The data, as provided by OTX's GamePlan Insights business intelligence tool and delivered to Gamasutra, was drawn during March and April of 2009, with the division's parent company OTX polling 1,000 gamers across numerous demographics on a weekly basis. Despite the high number of third parties, Nintendo still clearly packs the strongest punch on the system. While about 17 percent of the base plans to pick up Wii Sports Resort, nothing past the number two slot surpasses seven percent. And of each game's planned purchasers, none have a preorder intent that reaches the double digits. That behavior is contrasted with that of the Xbox 360 audience, whose most-wanted games are, simply put, more wanted on a per-user basis -- although the Wii boasts a much larger overall install base to compensate. The 20 games with the highest levels of purchase intent among the Wii audience are as follows: 1. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo EAD) 2. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Sega) 3. Need for Speed Nitro (EA Montreal) 4. Madden NFL 10 (EA Tiburon) 5. Modern Warfare 2 (rumored, no developer announced; published by Activision) 6. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (EA Tiburon) 7. Punch-Out!! (Next Level Games, Nintendo) 8. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (EA Bright Light) 9. EA Sports Active (EA Canada) 10. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Amaze Entertainment, Activision) 11. Indiana Jones & the Staff of Kings (LucasArts) 12. Boom Blox Bash Party (EA Los Angeles) 13. The Beatles: Rock Band (Limited Edition bundle) (Harmonix Music Systems, EA/MTV Games) 14. The Beatles: Rock Band (game only) (Harmonix Music Systems, EA/MTV Games) 15. NCAA Football 10 (EA Tiburon) 16. Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Red Fly Studio, Atari) 17. Tom Clancy's HAWX (Ubisoft Romania) 18. Grand Slam Tennis (EA Canada) 19. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Krome Studios, Activision) 20. Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (Eurocom, Activision) The following chart of the first ten games on the list also illustrates levels of preorder intent among those who have already indicated general purchase intent: Fans of Modern Warfare 2 must be particularly hopeful: the game has been rumored, but not actually announced, for the Wii platform. Interestingly, while it was nearly the most-wanted game on the Xbox 360 chart, Wii owners want the game just as much as PlayStation 3 owners, who also rank it at number five -- and it has actually been announced for Sony's console. Further data on the most anticipated PlayStation 3 games will be published on Gamasutra in the coming days. See yesterday's most-wanted Xbox 360 titles, too.