Topic: Interview with Nintendo on indie developers

[TJ Spyke]

Gamasutra has posted a interview they did with Dan Adelman, who is the man responsible at Nintendo for working with indie developers. Some of the highlights:


*Mentioning that Nintendo has dropped the requirement that developers have to have a office separate from their home
*Mentioned stuff like eShop developers getting to choose their price (citing the example of Little Inferno starting at $14.99, the the developer put it on sale at $9.99 and deciding it was selling so well that they would keep it at that price) and that patching games are easy
*Nintendo has started providing Unity Pro 4 (which normally costs $1,500) free of cost to licensed developers, pointing out how this will make it easy for developers with Unity and a Wii U dev kit to port a game from Unity to Wii U and vice-versa. Also said that at GDC they will unveil new tools for developers to use HTML5 and JavaScript to make games
*Mentioned that Nintendo has dropped the requirement for digital games after WiiWare to sell a minimum number of copies before developers get revenue. This means that for DSiWare, 3DS eShop, and Wii U eShop, developers get revenue the moment they sell any copies.
*They worked and continue to work with developers on feedback for stuff like what functionality they want in the eShop, how they can make developer tools better, etc. They also try to make it easier to interact with, making sure to answer any question or at least reply within 24 hours.


http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/189180/Nintendos_indies_guy_tells_you_how_to_get_your_games_approved.php

[ShyGuy]

Good for Nintendo!

[Kytim89]

Nintendo could capture a lot more third party support if they allowed them to walk away with ninety-percent of the profits and Nintendo splits the remaining ten percent between licensing fees and their own profit. Nintendo could make the bulk of their money from console and their own first party title sales. If this were to pass then we could very well see an unprecedented amount of support for the Wii U. Even EA could not resist such a temtping offer for profitability.

[MagicCow64]

Yeah, I think they need to make some aggressive moves to outflank Sony and Microsoft at this point, given how bad the Wii U's rep has become, deserved or not. It's too late to compete on specs, and the port war was over before it began, even with current gen stuff. But it's not too late for Nintendo to become an Indie haven.

[Kytim89]

Yeah, I think they need to make some aggressive moves to outflank Sony and Microsoft at this point, given how bad the Wii U's rep has become, deserved or not. It's too late to compete on specs, and the port war was over before it began, even with current gen stuff. But it's not too late for Nintendo to become an Indie haven.

The scenario that I described would not only be relegated to indie developers but bigger game companies as well. What would happen is that third party developers would make their games eShop exclusive. This would allow them to make more money and thus incentivize them for more support.

[pokepal148]

Yeah, I think they need to make some aggressive moves to outflank Sony and Microsoft at this point, given how bad the Wii U's rep has become, deserved or not. It's too late to compete on specs, and the port war was over before it began, even with current gen stuff. But it's not too late for Nintendo to become an Indie haven.

is the Port War over, i mean we're getting watchdogs,

[ymeegod]

How is this new?  Unity's on all the major consoles (PS3/MS/WII U) and we knew that from day 1?

[shingi_70]

How is this new?  Unity's on all the major consoles (PS3/MS/WII U) and we knew that from day 1?

We knew the console supported Unity. We didn't however know that it was going to be given away free with each dev kit.