NationStates Jolt Archive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiiware



The WiiWare section is also being touted as a forum to provide developers with small budgets to release innovative, original, and smaller-scale games without the investment and risk of creating a title to be sold at retail (somewhat akin to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Store).


http://www.gamespot.com/news/6186466.html?tag=result;title;1


For consumers, the WiiWare channel will simply mean more games, but for developers, the launch of WiiWare dev tools will make it easier for them to create new games for Nintendo's popular console. It seems developers of all shapes and sizes have already taken up the challenge, with Nintendo of America project development senior officer Tom Prata telling GameSpot that more than 100 projects were already in the pipeline. While Prata would not be drawn on how many of those would be available on WiiWare's launch day, he did promise "a good breadth of titles that will cover a number of different genres."

Sounds good for indie developers. Nintendo comes across as supporting them more than the other two. I may get a Wii just to reward nintendo for the effort, and to support indie devs that may have never gotten their stuff out.

It's not an indie service, at least it isn't yet, and it will probably never be. You have to own a Wii dev kit too make a game at least, and Square Enix is not exactly indie.

Instead you should be supporting XNA, indie PSN games and some of the awesome stuff that was at the Independent Games Festival this year like Fez. Also go out and buy Audiosurf damn it.

The GDC and IGF coverage on last week's 1UP Show (http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/17687) had some good stuff in it. (Warning: The file is hundreds of megabytes in size)

It's not an indie service, at least it isn't yet, and it will probably never be. You have to own a Wii dev kit too make a game at least, and Square Enix is not exactly indie.



Maybe you didn't read the entire stuff? It is for indie devs as well. Read it all before you reply. Thanks.

Maybe you didn't read the entire stuff? It is for indie devs as well. Read it all before you reply. Thanks.

That's interesting, and news to me, but it still seems like they're getting a bad deal.



IGN: As far as getting a dev kit goes, how difficult is that for a developer? The price is $2,000, but previously Nintendo wanted a ton of specifics. You needed to have a company address that was zoned industrial, and it needed to be a pure licensed developer. It isn't exactly an "open source" feeling in that sense, while it is extremely accessible for those in the position to develop already.

Prata: For non-licensed developers we're encouraging them to fill out a license application so that they can become developers for Nintendo. It is the same type of development you'll do with any retail content, but it's a different type of retail in that sense. The end result is content that will be delivered to consumers digitally, so we're also providing the confidential information in the form of SDK's and the like, so we do require that they're a licensed developer. They can always contact us fill out a developer application though.

IGN: All the restrictions still stand though, correct? A lot of people were thinking that this move is a more "open source" decision, but you'll still need to be a proven, licensed developer just the same, right?

Prata: Yeah. In the end it's still about solid content that consumers can enjoy, so while the size of the team and budget is less restricting, we still want professionals that can secure solid content. In some cases though we have larger companies with smaller groups working on content, and so the breath of the developer content can be a lot wider in that sense. As you're probably aware the resource requirements are going up from generation to generation, so developers are having a harder time having their concepts made into retail packages. Wii Ware allows the opportunity to not only do something different, but actually have that reach consumers they way it needs to. If a developer can dream and create it, the consumer can enjoy it.

http://au.wii.ign.com/articles/853/853752p1.html

That said online Dr Mario is awesome, and LostWind looks awesome, but those aren't being made by indie devs still. Sure we'll see good stuff eventually but compared to everybody else I'm sceptical.

Wonderful that we can encourage those people by a Wii.

Seriously though, this is awesome, even more than the Wii itself.