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Nintendo Lessens Requirements for eShop Development

by Curtis Bonds - March 26, 2013, 6:11 am EDT
Total comments: 2 Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/189180/Nintendo...

Don't have an office? No problem.

Nintendo's manager of business development Dan Adelman has revealed in an interview with Gamasutra that it has lowered its requirements for developers to make games on their Wii U and 3DS eShops. In the interview, Dan mentions that Nintendo wants to make getting a game approved on the eShop "as frictionless as possible", compared to the WiiWare and DSiWare services.

Dan goes on to say that while you still need to be a licensed developer by Nintendo, it's now a much easier process, due to getting rid of certain requirements such as needing a dedicated office space. "As you point out, more and more people are working from home, and we recognize that developers are forming virtual teams around the world." Adelman says. "So I'm glad that I can officially confirm that the office requirement is a thing of the past." He also goes on to mention that the developers not requiring a presence in specific territories to publish a game, and letting them have free range on when they can lower the price of their game, as well as being able to easily patch them when they want, without a huge cost.

Another requirement that has changed has changed from the WiiWare and DSiWare system was needing to pass a supposed "6000 sales threshold" in order for the developer to get paid. Adelman said that this was Nintendo's attempt at trying to curb low-quality software, while at the same time having a hands-off approach to the games being developed by third-parties. "We didn't believe that Nintendo should screen game concepts." says Adelman. "That should be up to the developer who's making the investment. Instead, we wanted to have a mechanism that would encourage developers to self-police their own game quality."

The threshold was thought to be a convenient way to go about it. Unfortunately, some great games that just didn't find an audience wound up being penalized. So for all systems after WiiWare -- DSiWare, Nintendo 3DS eShop, and Wii U eShop, we decided to get rid of the thresholds altogether. Developers receive revenue from unit 1."

Talkback

LouieturkeyMarch 26, 2013

These were much needed changes, though didn't we hear about the threshold change awhile ago?

TJ SpykeMarch 26, 2013

I think it was rumored, but here they are officially confirming it.

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