Here are the figures Nintendo released last night, covering almost every single console and handheld the company has ever manufactured (sorry, Virtual Boy, you were left off the list). They tally every single game released on cartridge/disc on these systems in Japan, the US and “Other” (mainly Europe), and divide the number between those published by Nintendo and those released by OEMs (third parties).
Taking a look at these numbers, the NES saw 72 games released in the United States by Nintendo, with a further 590 games coming from third parties. The SNES breakdown was 52/667, the N64 was 53/244, the GameCube had 48/504 and the Wii a staggering 55/1206.
Two things jump out at you from those numbers. Firstly, the number of first-party releases was fairly consistent. Second, holy shit, look at those Wii figures.
Now to the Wii U. To date Nintendo has released 39 games in the US, while third parties have released just 118. While the system isn’t quite done just yet, the few games left in the pipeline (and the NX’s imminent reveal) won’t move those numbers much.