Wii gets nearly double PS3's attach rate in Japan

Nintendo's of Japan's rosy Wii launch looked even rosier today as Media Create unveiled preliminary sales figures giving the machine a 1.8 attach rate, trouncing the PS3's "I'm only buying it to sell on Yahoo auctions" 0.98 attach rate. While this may seem low compared to the States, it's a lot better than the Japanese Cube's 1.2 launch attach rate and the Japanese DS's paltry 0.89. The top ten games and hardware sales were:

• Wii hardware: 350,358

• Wii Sports: 176,167

• Wii Play: 174,297

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: 139,011

• Odoru Made in Wario: 63,954

• Swing Golf Pangya: 12,908

• Ennichi no Tatsujin: 10,763

• Red Steel: 9,392

• SD Gundam SCAD Hammers: 9,226

• Tamagotchi Pika Pika Daitouryou: 8,042

• Elebits: 5,791
  

As rosy as these sales figures are for Nintendo, they're a bit of a kick in the teeth to third-parties, whose offerings achieved sales that can only be described as comparatively weak. Third-parties have always struggled to compete with Nintendo's acclaimed first- and second-party development teams and, according to these preliminary numbers, it seems that this trend will continue on the Wii. It'll be interesting, and important, to see how third-party titles fare on the Wii in the upcoming months.