3DS eShop is not even close to good enough though.

If they want to have real success in this field then their online shop needs to be on par with PSN/XBLA/iTunes shopping experience. It should be clear, clean, concise, account based. I still have trouble finding certain demos and content on the eShop, it's just all over the place and a mess of a layout. And they need to be brutally honest with themselves and hold themselves up to a high standard. The eShop feels like an experience or browsing the internet circa 1997.

With Wii U, like I said they need to come out of the gate, day 1 swinging. Every system should come with free points good for 1-2 downloads to get people signed up to an account and accustomed to going online and buying online from Nintendo. The system itself should come with a video that illustrates step by step how to get online and what you can do and buy online for noobs/extreme casuals.

And they themselves should fund a lot more original Western content from indie devs. I'd lock up the Trine guys for 1-2 projects. I'd go seek out the Super Meatboy guy. I'd instruct NOA to get off their ass and actually do something and go find the next star developer, much in the same way Howard Lincoln found Rare doing SGI demos and turned that into the blockbuster that was Donkey Kong Country.

It's time for Nintendo to rediscover that sensibility because honestly they have lost it over the years. And not just small Japanese devs. 80% of the game development talent today is outside of Japan. Go work with some of these people for gawds sake. They have ideas and talent and just need the funding. Some kid in his garage right now is coming up with the idea of the next Angry Birds. Get off your ass NOA and go find me that kid. That's what I'd be saying to my Western divisions.

You need to improve your reading comprehension apparently.

I was the person who originally posted that on this site long ago. I didn't feel the need to repost links that you could find easily with any effort in searching.

Where did you provide any specific developer that took off on the Nintendo console? Reading comprehension and telepathy are two different things.

3DS Eshop is account based from my current knowledge of buying programs.  It links to my Nintendo account.  Secondly, the shopping experience on the e-shop is better than PSN/XBLM.  I had a terrible time navigating PSN and Xbox Live marketplace isn't anymore pleasent.  The only truly pleasent storefront so far for me has been steam.

It is not account based. Even Nintendo acknowledges that and says they are working to change that for the Wii U.

Steam blows everyone away, Valve is lightyears ahead of all the console dinosaurs.

You raise a good point about development being far cheaper on the Wii, and that's an important point that that many people seem to forget. Remember, if you don't spend as much on development, you don't need as many sales to be successful. HD games on the other hand, many developers came public with the fact that they needed to break well into over a million to even make a return on their investment. While third party games on Wii may not have those frontloaded sales that the HD consoles enjoyed, many of them still sold respectively over time on Nintendo's console, especially when you consider the development costs were much lower.

Now, the question is, will it be similarly cheaper to develop on Wii U compared to Sony and MS's next consoles, or even their current ones? That remains to be seen. However, if that is the case, I think Nintendo will definitly have a leg up on the competition in terms of drawing developer support, especially in these hard economic times. The Wii U could very well be seen as the refuge console for third parties in hard times.

Everyone points to these mega franchises that have sold so well on the HD consoles like GTA, Metal Gear Solid, RE, Final Fantasy, etc, but people don't realize that these titles are extremely front loaded in sales. Meaning, the vast majority of people who buy these games buy them within the first month, or even the first week. This leads to deceptive numbers in the sales charts that make the games look like monsters. Then in the following weeks, they'll fall like a stone. On the other hand, look at games like Just Dance, or even more core games like Mad World, Monster Hunter, and RE4, that have kept creeping along in sales. Add the fact that most of these big buget HD games cost a fortune to produce, and suddenly the third party situation on the HD consoles doesn't look quite so rosey as you'd think. Especially if you are an indie dev with an extrememly low budget and minimal resources, Nintendo's much cheaper, much easier to develop for Wii U starts to look much more appealing to support.

In regards to the third party success of the Wii (or lack their of), third parties did better on Wii than many people think. On top of the huge success stories like Mario and Sonic, Guitar Hero, Carnival Games, Just Dance that have sold in the muili-millions, you also have the franchises that have done great numbers and no doubt turned a nice profit like RE4, Monster Hunter Tri, Sonic, EA Sports Active, Rock Band, Epic Mickey, Rabbids, Red Steel, Goldeneye, House of the Dead, Call of Duty, and countless others that have all of those have cracked a million sales according to vgchartz. Now, if you crack a million sales with the budget required for a Wii game, that's almost surely quite a nice return on your (small) investment. And let's not forget most of these games I mentioned didn't exactly require much effort, as they were ports, or games allocated to developers' "minor league" squads to make. I guess this was because the major developers prefered to create games in which they would lose money on for the HD consoles.

The bottom line is that third party games that deserved to sell (either by their widespread appeal or game quality), DID sell. The games that didn't deserve to, didn't. End of story. Any time people have used the third party doom and gloom argument for Wii, I've tried to get them to name even one Wii game they think deserved to sell but didn't. They can never do it, and the few times they could, they'll end up naming a game that is clear to have a niche appeal but that THEY liked, so I guess that means EVERYONE should like it. A vast majority of Wii third party games were either rushed ports, shoddy titles made by developers' B teams, or extrememly niche titles like Zack and Wiki that most Wii users haven't even heard of, let alone could get into. Now, while I may feel that a game like Little King's Story deserved greater sales, I also realize that an RTS/God game/adventure game like this doesn't exactly appeal to the mass market. Look at Okami in PS2. Sometimes games we think are great simply don't have that appeal to the masses, and thus don't sell. It just happens. That's the unpredictability of the market for you..

Considering the circumstances, (small budget, the lack of effort by most developers, competition from Nintendo games) Wii third party games did pretty respectable numbers, if not downright great.

When did learning about what you are talking about before you voice your opinion require telepathy? I figured for someone who was so outspoken against this like you that you would have "at least" looked into to some degree.

That was common knowledge too anyone who has been keeping up with recent events regarding the Wii U, but you apparently didn't know jack squat. You came in here spouting every negative mantra and misconception that has appeared over the past 4-6 years while completely dismissing everything without providing a "single" link or fact to back up anything you stated.

When I asked you to provide such material you started making personal attacks like a person who doesn't know what he's talking about typically does.

Nothing you said was ever based on or proven to be fact and you demonstrated no will to learn or correct your mistakes. Why would I make any more effort for you after you demonstrated this?

I backed my points up. I'm still waiting for you to back up a single one yours. Though, I already know what you are going to do. You are going to wait until someone more knowledgeble and logical posts something that can be viewed as contradictory then run behind with congratulatory dissing like you've been doing since I first asked you to provide proof of your claims.

I posted many facts to back my points up and I have many more.

LOL, ok. You went back and edited your previous posts to actually add some content to them.

I provided several examples of huge (not just "oh we sold a few copies and made a couple of bucks") success stories on other platforms that are taking the lead in indie game development and distribution. 

Not my problem if that doesn't have a Nintendo logo on it and doesn't fit your bizarre "Nintendo is the messiah, renounce your sins" agenda.

This is a public message board for discussion which implies other people can contribute to a conversation with varying viewpoints, not a podium for crack pot brand-oriented sermons. If you don't like that charcterization, maybe you shouldn't espouse posts that come off exactly as such (MS and Sony are the devil!).

As many other people have mentioned in this thread Steam/PC and iOS are indeed the driving influences of indepedent game development. It would take a wild leap in logic to put Nintendo in that position. If they change that with Wii U and the 3DS in the future, great, but we live in a reality called the present.

Maybe you have a time machine and have seen the future, but the rest of don't. I can only base an arguement based on what Nintendo has done for the indie to date -- which isn't a hell of a lot. They're just now in 2012 getting a half way competent online service together, let alone having content comparable to what other platforms have had for years.

I love Nintendo products, but I'm not going to give them a medal for that. Sorry.

Its nice to hear an opinon by someone who actually knows what they are talking about for once. Thank you. This is exactly what I have been getting at.

To many people misread the variables.

As for whether the Wii U development will be cheap. Nintendo stated that they intended for the Wii U to be as easy to develop for as the Wii and devs have stated that porting to the Wii U is cheap and easy. Then look at games like ZombiU and Project P-100 which haven't even had a year of developement time put into them untop of them being developed on imcomplete hardware.

Then the reports of higher profit margins from Nintendo's online shop. I'd say that things are looking good for indie devs on Nintendo platforms right now.

Renegade Kid started out making published titles tho, and is made up of industr vets. Also the fact that they need money from the PC releases to fund development of their Nintendo titles isn't really a great success story for Nintendo. And Cave Story and VVVVVV started out on PC and were just ported by Nicalis.

Nnooo and Gaijin Games would be better examples of Nintendo indie success stories IMO.