Indie dev says Nintendo going out of their way to pamper indie crowd

[Dodece]

This doesn't prove or disprove anything. If anything the conflicting reports suggest that while Nintendo has empowered its employees to fast track independent game development. The more comprehensive support required by upscale studios is nowhere near as effective. Which is understandable, because both groups need different things. A independent developer just doesn't need the kind of support more mainstream developers need. More to the point they don't expect to get that level of support.

What they need is to get a hold of someone quickly that can green light their project, rubber stamp the paperwork, and to hand them an event calendar. Where they can meet a representative of the company in person. All of that can be done through a fifteen minute phone call to the public relations department at Nintendo.

A mainstream developer needs a entirely different level of support. They need far more contact on a daily basis. They need a team that offers them comprehensive technical support, can help them promote their product, and help them set out a marketing strategy, and help them network with other companies that can provide services they may need done out of house. What they need is a strong consolidated team to make their game a reality.

Basically Nintendo seems to be doing a good job of getting potential developers a yes man, but what they aren't doing a good job of is networking a internal team with a third party studio. The way Microsoft and Sony handle this is to have studios that are dedicated to third party development, and those studios are one stop shops. They provide high end services. That will even make house calls if the situation calls for it.

Ask Bethesda about that. They were having a hard time getting their expansions for Skyrim to work on the PS3. So what did Sony do. They sent a troubleshooting team out to them. To help them figure out what the problem was. Something tells me that small independent developers aren't expecting that level of service. While high end developers have come to expect it.

Honestly I think Nintendo has its priorities somewhat skewed. Don't get me wrong giving the independent developers what they want and need in a timely manner is a good thing, but they obviously need a better middleman for the bigger developers. I don't think anyone is lying. I just think they are expecting entirely different things.