http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17557

Sony's Harrison: You Can't Get Wii's Whole Audience

  At the "Lunch with the Luminaries" luncheon at GDC this year, Sony's president of worldwide studios Phil Harrison told EA Blueprint's Neil Young that making Wii games may not be as viable as third-party publishers think.

Due to competition with Nintendo's unstoppable games, according to Harrison, who was speaking at the invite-only press lunch: "Your addressable market is only 40% of the installed base."

Young countered that EA's recent successful Wii title Smarty Pants, which had its gestation in meetings at the last GDC less than a year ago with developers Planet Moon, was "very easy to build very quickly."

The EA executive suggested that it was "...fundamentally much more fun... almost like Xbox Live Arcade [development] to some degree" - he feels that's where the Wii's strength lies.

Are you sure he was talking third parties? I thought he was refering to Sony and the PS3.......

Sorry-can't detect sarcasm now.

That's odd because recent weeks show Nintendo only has about 40% or less compared to other publishers... and that's including Wii sports/play in case any of you want to take them out.

Perhaps in Japan it might be as bad as 50-60%... but third parties are still better going Wii than PS3 there due to userbase.

clearly sarcasm, anyway young certainly put harris back in his hole

Too bad that's still better than the 10% of people that use their PS3 for games...

See I can make up statistics too.

I am sure 3rd Parties would be REALLY sad to only reach a 40% of the Wii's audience... I guess they will have so settle on 10.08 million userbase.... But Wait? isn't that how big the PS3' is? ; )

Actually, anyone would be glad to reach only 40% of 20 million people.

40% of the Wii's userbase would be around 9 million... which is probably why he picked 40% and not 50%. Though Sony's games don't make up as much of the PS3 market as Nintendo games do on the Wii market, it's probably similar size when you take out first party sales anyway.

Any idea what he based that on -- other than to pick a number which was less than Sony's PS3 installed base?

And notice he got shot down fairly quickly by a third-party developer.

I mean I know some units are being used as rehab machines and in senior centers. But I doubt its more than half 8*>

Mike from Morgantown