Topic: Wii U eShop Pricing, Patching in Hands of Publishers

[NWR_DrewMG]

Nintendo is taking a hands-off approach toward eShop prices.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/32526

Nintendo is allowing publishers to control the prices, and sales, of Wii U eShop content. 

In an IGN interview with Frozenbyte, developer of Trine 2, marketing manager Mikael Haveri said that "[the model is] very close to what Steam and Apple are doing right now, and very indie friendly."

In addition, Haveri stated that Nintendo is allowing developers to patch their games at no additional charge.

"Simply put they've told us that there are no basic payments for each patch (which were pretty high on most platforms) and that we can update our game almost as much as we want," Haveri said. "For indie developers this is huge."

Nintendo has historically taken flack for being too controlling with the Wii Shop Channel, forcing prices publishers weren't comfortable with or not allowing sales or demos. All indications are that Nintendo seems to have taken a wildly different approach with Wii U.

[TJ Spyke]

Considering Microsoft gives just one free patch and then charges $40,000 per update, indie developers should love this (which is why Fez has a major bug that won't be fixed because developer Phil Fry refuses to pay Microsoft the $40K to issue the patch even thought the bug was his fault).

[Oblivion]

If they're doing this with the Wii U, why won't they do this with the 3DS?

[Mop it up]

This is good news, all of the restrictions on WiiWare didn't make much sense.

[shingi_70]

Excellent quite excellent indeed.

[alegoicoe]

its always good to have indie developers by your side, kudos to nintendo.

[BlackNMild2k1]

PC Port Haven, as requested, incoming

Good Job Nintendo

[tendoboy1984]

How does this compare to what Sony does on PSN? Are they more hands-off than Microsoft?

[MrPhishfood]

I can see things going out of balance if indies started chaging $1 for their games.

[joshnickerson]

I would imagine there's some sort of standard minimum price.

[Louieturkey]

If prices get down to $1, I may be buying a lot of games.

[Mop it up]

My guess is that the minimum price is $2, but that isn't much different from having $1 games.

[Kytim89]

Does anyone think that game companies like Activision or Ubisoft would eventually discount the prices of games like Assassin's Creed 3 and Black Ops 2?

[TJ Spyke]

Does anyone think that game companies like Activision or Ubisoft would eventually discount the prices of games like Assassin's Creed 3 and Black Ops 2?

They rarely do on XBLA and PSN.