botticus said:
Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to assume that third parties will be filling up your release schedule when there is zero history of this occurring. It's all well and good to hope for that, but it would be very stupid to base your development schedule around it.
Nintendo always does this though. It happened with the DS, Cube, and N64, and those are just the ones I remember.
Nintendo releases software in bunches at first to give it its land legs, then scales back development and generally third parties take over. They did this with the DS (in fact I remember a thread that stated that Nintendo was scaling back DS releases to focus on Wii, and as usual it turned into a bitchfest that actually died down quickly because there were still 3rd party games to buy).
The only major difference between the DS and Wii in this regard is as markatisu said; while Brain Age and Nintendogs floated the DS, Wii Music and AC: CF didn't, which made the third party drought the Wii suffered from look that much worse.
The NA situation (different market I know, but the principle still applies) plays to this as well; Nintendo assumed that their earlier barrage would have carried them through until next year, the bitching started en masse (and in turn was fueled by Nintendo themselves, recall the "Core gamers are insatiable" comments?) then produced a Q4 with Wii Music and City Folk as their big titles.
What released from third Parties of note? Shy of CoD: WaW, I can't really recall much. the Nintendo drought then (and now, in Japan) wouldn't have been maligned even half as much as it has been if Nintendo either:
Had 3rd parties filling in the schedule
Had titles that managed to carry them through thin periods to the degree that the mega DS hits did.
Nobody in these threads was bitching when Nintendo was pulling in 40K a week just off the back of Wii Fit, and the release schedule was still thin.