Guitarguy said:
In an interview with Ars Technica, Blow would go on to say how he similarly reached out to Microsoft and was rebuffed. When Blow asked his contact if Microsoft would acknowledge a next-gen Xbox, share its technical specifications, he heard back: “I have no political path to making something like that happen for an independent developer.” This was prior to either console being released. |
| pokoko said: This is something I don't really understand, to be honest. I mean, let's think about this. You can keep the specs of your console hidden from the internet for a bit longer OR you can have more and better games on your system sooner. Which is more important? Hmm. But! But other console manufacturers might find out what kind of processor you're using (as if they don't know already from industry sources)! Sony might scrap the PS4 and start over by copying Nintendo's new console! It would ruin everything. Seriously. As for the logic that "indie" games don't matter, look at the year on the calendar. They're the new middleware. They mean your console has content beyond a the handful of AAA titles that release in a given year. They matter to a lot of people. Journey mattered. The Ori and the Blind Forest mattered. Even just the reveal of No Man's Sky mattered. Cumulative speaking, they matter a lot. The idea that the studio behind The Ori and the Blind Forest can't even get a reply is ridiculous. No one should be defending that. Someone should have been calling them up immediately, even if it's just to offer reassurances that they want to do business and to throw a provisional timetable at them. You can't treat potentially valuable business partners that way and then be surprised when they stonewall you later. It's just not very smart. |
| Machina said: Lots of complacency from Nintendo fans in this thread (fitting really, seems to mirror Nintendo's own attitude). If Nintendo's next home console is to succeed it will either need to truly innovate/offer something completely new, a la the Wii, or it's going to need to, if not compete with other platforms for third party support, then achieve as close to parity as possible. I think they genuinely tried this second strategy with the Wii U at first actually. When it was first revealed Reggie was very, very insistent that third parties were a focus for Nintendo and that the platform would receive a lot of third party support. They spent a lot of time highlighting the third party titles that were in the works, and initially it did gain some interesting exclusives, but these quickly dried up and slow sales only worsened the situation. I think Nintendo's best hope is the first strategy actually, with a focus on delivering first party content that builds on the unique pitch they have for the platform (whatever that may be), but I digress. Naturally indie developers will not be given early dev kits for the most part - I understand and largely agree with those posts pointing out that Moon Studios has not developed for Nintendo before so does not deserve to be high up the list - but as Outlaw pointed out above, this is not some no-name indie developer and you do your own side of the argument a disservice to try and paint them as such. Ori and the Blind Forest was highly acclaimed and won numerous GOTY awards, so you would hope that Nintendo would at least be in communication with them, even if they weren't high on the priority list for a dev kit. But all of that is kind of a distraction from the more important issue. It's not so much about Moon Studios not getting a dev kit as it's an indicator of Nintendo's continued aloofness with a large number of third parties. As others have linked to and noted in this thread, Moon Studios is far from the only developer making these points about lack of dev kits and lack of communication. It's a worrying sign if you genuinely want third party support for the platform because it suggests that, as with the Wii U, there will probably be a few interesting third party titles early on but thereafter it'll quickly dry up. |
this, that, and the other one.
nintendo needs to follow sony's lead and be more open to indies. you guys can say mean things all you want about indies but even if you had all the big publishers but no indies your hardware will have lots of multi-month droughts of games. games are just getting fewer and farther between and indies are the middle ware. nintendo needs to treat them like first-class developers or it will get xbox'd out of the market again.
