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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nintendo giving Devs free Wii U kits?

Conegamer said:
VGKing said:
ethomaz said:
VGKing said:
I don't think price of Wii U devkits is the issue here....but its a start. Good job Nintendo!

I think for Indie and small developers it is a huge issue.

The devkits cost over $20k.

Well if indies are getting free devkits then it is a huge plus. But indie developers generally  have a small staff and limited resources so if given the option to make a PS4 game or a Wii U game, which will they choose?

Wii U obviously. Much larger install base and with a free dev kit (which I thought they were anyway), it just means less risk.

Though PC multiplatform would be the best way to go, like Toki Tori, Runner 2 and others.



Yup, definitely the Wii U. Whilst the PS4 is going to have Unity 4 support, unless we hear different, developers have to pay for a Unity 4 licence for that privilege.

And then you've also got Greenhill's MULTI IDE, Autodesk middleware and Havok middleware free with every dev kit. Any developers that have previously been using that middleware for PS3 or 360 development will need to pay for another licence for PS4 and 720 development, whereas they get it all free with each Wii U dev kit. That's tens of thousands of pounds of software and middleware for nothing.

Got 10 developers with a PS4 dev kit each..? Not sure of the exact value of the licences altogether but £10,000 is the bare minimum I would have thought, probably double that but I will stand corrected if someone with more knowledge puts forward a different figure. That's at least £100,000 per year on licences alone.

Adding free dev kits to the occasion on top of that is just icing on the cake for indie devs.



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Good to see them doing SOMETHING, their apparent complacency in the face of Wii U's struggles was (and still is to a degree) downright maddening.



curl-6 said:
Good to see them doing SOMETHING, their apparent complacency in the face of Wii U's struggles was (and still is to a degree) downright maddening.

I agree with that. It's like they needed a kick in the butt. It still isn't as bad as everyone seems to make it out to be as the Wii U is selling at the same rate as the PS3 and Xbox 360 when they were released.

Read this, might make you feel better :P

http://gengame.net/2013/03/next-gen-transition-will-be-just-as-slow-and-painful-for-ps4-and-xbox-as-wii-u/



Gotta figure out how to set these up lol.

Good, paying for dev kits is a dumb idea, having exactly the same problems as a flat tax.