snowdog said:
All Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo games go through the same process. All the 'Nintendo Seal of Quality' means is that the title has passed all Lot Checks and QA testing at the Alpha, Beta and final submission stages. They might need to pass at the pre-Alpha stage too, I can't remember...it's been more than a year since I worked in the industry so my memory isn't too fresh tbh. |
Snowdog has got it mostly right.
The "Final Master Approval" is him referencing "Compliance". Every single game released for either Nintendo, MS, or Sony have compliance checks the game has to pass. Each company has their own specific set of guidelines, so a game can "Fail" on one console, and pass on another. This will cause delays to the game as the company will have to resubmit the game with the required fixes (pay a heft fee for submission by the way), and hope nothing else is found that will fail the game.
Alpha/beta checks are all inhouse to the party who's developing the game, nothing the big 3 have to see (or even care about).
So it's not so much as "This game sucks/isn't fun, we aren't letting you release it", it's more like "Clean up your act or this game isn't being released on our platform".
Nintendo happens to be a bitch compliance wise, where as MS/Sony tend to let some of the smaller things get swept under the carpet (but aren't afraid to fail your ass either).
