The sales threshold is different in each region according to various sources. In America, the threshold is believed to be around the mid thousands while in Europe it's in the lower thousands.
Multiple developers have contacted news sources and confirmed this to be true, with some developers believing that they will never see any profit due to poor sales of their WiiWare efforts.
Nintendo's intentions for the threshold haven't been made clear, but it is believed that this is a quality control method that prevents developers from releasing poor quality titles, or "shovelware," on the service.
Days after the news surfaced, more details on the threshold were revealed. Apparently the size of WiiWare titles also play a part in surpassing the sales threshold, once again varying from region to region. According to Kotaku, North American titles over 16 MB must sell over 6,000 units in order to be profitable to its developers, while titles under the 16 MB limited must only sell 4,000 units.
In Europe the limit is far lower. Titles over the 16 MB limit must sell 3,000 units while titles under the 16 MB limit only need 2,000 units to be profitable.
Kotaku also claims that developers have two years to meet the threshold. Once this has been surpassed, the profit royalty is of 65/35 in favor of the developer.
Industry news website Gamasutra was contacted by various WiiWare developers who claim that this is not an issue whatsoever as they have easily surpassed the threshold. The new storage solution has also helped developers in obtaining this requirement as sales of existing titles such as Telltale Games' Strong Bad Game have doubled since the solution was made a reality at the Game Developer's Conference.
Except for launch, there has never been a avalanche of WiiWare games coming out. The average is 1 WiiWare game per week. That new game gets hyped in the press release (and e-mail Nintendo sends out to subscribers) and featured prominently for awhile. I think sales may have increased with Wii Menu System 4.0, remember Telltale Games proudly stating the sales of the Strong Bad games doubled after it?Yeah, it's great to see stuff like Strong Bad selling very well now that Nintendo lifted their arbitrary storage restriction, but that still doesn't make the sales threshold acceptable. Once developers have paid Nintendo for the right to use the WiiWare service, Nintendo's role in the process should be over. They should not be dictating to developers how many sales they have to get before they are "allowed" to start taking in returns on their work. This just reeks of the sort of Iron-Fisted B.S. Nintendo pulled in the NES days.
Except for launch, there has never been a avalanche of WiiWare games coming out. The average is 1 WiiWare game per week. That new game gets hyped in the press release (and e-mail Nintendo sends out to subscribers) and featured prominently for awhile. I think sales may have increased with Wii Menu System 4.0, remember Telltale Games proudly stating the sales of the Strong Bad games doubled after it?Yeah, it's great to see stuff like Strong Bad selling very well now that Nintendo lifted their arbitrary storage restriction, but that still doesn't make the sales threshold acceptable. Once developers have paid Nintendo for the right to use the WiiWare service, Nintendo's role in the process should be over. They should not be dictating to developers how many sales they have to get before they are "allowed" to start taking in returns on their work. This just reeks of the sort of Iron-Fisted B.S. Nintendo pulled in the NES days.
Except for launch, there has never been a avalanche of WiiWare games coming out. The average is 1 WiiWare game per week. That new game gets hyped in the press release (and e-mail Nintendo sends out to subscribers) and featured prominently for awhile. I think sales may have increased with Wii Menu System 4.0, remember Telltale Games proudly stating the sales of the Strong Bad games doubled after it?Yeah, it's great to see stuff like Strong Bad selling very well now that Nintendo lifted their arbitrary storage restriction, but that still doesn't make the sales threshold acceptable. Once developers have paid Nintendo for the right to use the WiiWare service, Nintendo's role in the process should be over. They should not be dictating to developers how many sales they have to get before they are "allowed" to start taking in returns on their work. This just reeks of the sort of Iron-Fisted B.S. Nintendo pulled in the NES days.
Comparing this to Nintendo's NES restrictions is ridiculous. People complain up and down about Nintendo doing nothing to stop the shovelware on the Wii and then when they introduce a policy to combat it on WiiWare it's "Iron-Fisted B.S."
I didn't realize the threshold was 6,000 sales...doesn't seem like that big of a deal. It's simple - if you want to make money, make good (or at least decent) games. Sure small indy developers may not have the resources to make hype-worthy games, but they should do some testing with a PC version of said games before making the WiiWare jump.
This is almost as silly as that $.16 per download fee Sony charges developers for each download on the PlayStation Network.
This is almost as silly as that $.16 per download fee Sony charges developers for each download on the PlayStation Network.
Per gigabyte actually. Sony doesn't get bandwidth for free, why should the ones who upload content to the PSN get it?
Though I just remembered that stock photography places like iStock will only send members a check with their commission cash once they earn a total of $100. They will not cut a check for less though that is in part to keep people from constantly requesting $50, $30 or even $10 checks all the time. I think it may also ensure that they are getting submitters who will stick with it long enough to earn said amount. My roommate submits a lot of photos and gets a few $100 a year right now. The guy that introduced it to him makes around $1200 a month doing it.
