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Forums - Nintendo - Nintendo Wooing XBLA and PSN Devs for WiiWare

Sqrl on 19 March 2008

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Note: Highlighted interesting bits
 

 
Nintendo Wooing Devs Away from XBLA

by Daemon Hatfield

March 18, 2008 - As it prepares to launch WiiWare, its original downloadable games service, Nintendo has apparently been trying to woo developers away from Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network. According to a report from Develop magazine, Nintendo is addressing concerns that have been expressed about the competition and painting a rosier picture for WiiWare.

Development for Nintendo's service is seemingly cheaper, and developers can be flexible with their pricing. The Wii hardware is less expensive and the SDK Nintendo provides is supposedly very detailed. A developer can purchase two to four Wii dev kits for the same price as one Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 kit. The company is also offering a higher royalty rate. Develop says Microsoft recently cut the royalty rate it pays developers in half, from 70 percent to 35 percent for games that earn less than $4 million. As a trade off, Microsoft is now handling some of the localization and worldwide rating work, but game makers are apparently still angry.

Another aspect of WiiWare Nintendo is touting is the fact that it won't be focusing on retro games, instead allowing independent developers to release new content.

"Nintendo has made it very clear to us that we'll not only be making a better royalty rate from WiiWare games, but we'll also have a better chance of selling games -- the service won't be clogged up with the retro titles that have blighted the chances of many independent studios on Xbox Live Arcade," an anonymous source told Develop.

Another developer who didn't want to be named says, "Frankly, we're not looking at making games for Xbox Live Arcade because the service is full of s***."

 

Sounds like Nintendo is serious about making WiiWare work.  It will be interesting to see how much of a battle developes over this downloadable market and how much of an issue the Wii's storage issue becomes.  If they are going to aggressively go after WiiWare developers I have to think they have a plan to solve the storage problem...but time will tell. 


 
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Riot Of The Blood on 19 March 2008

Great for the Nintendo Wii and great for gaming.

This is exactly what I want to see from the Wii. Some game just can't be done on the PS3 due to development cost. I'm thankful that the Wii is here to give those games a chance. A lot of small budget games are still AA and AAA quality. I want the Wii to give me those games since the other consoles can not.



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makingmusic476 on 19 March 2008
Riot Of The Blood said:
Great for the Nintendo Wii and great for gaming.

This is exactly what I want to see from the Wii. Some game just can't be done on the PS3 due to development cost. I'm thankful that the Wii is here to give those games a chance. A lot of small budget games are still AA and AAA quality. I want the Wii to give me those games since the other consoles can not.

 Admit it.  You love the Wii. :P



Riot Of The Blood on 19 March 2008
makingmusic476 said:
Riot Of The Blood said:
Great for the Nintendo Wii and great for gaming.

This is exactly what I want to see from the Wii. Some game just can't be done on the PS3 due to development cost. I'm thankful that the Wii is here to give those games a chance. A lot of small budget games are still AA and AAA quality. I want the Wii to give me those games since the other consoles can not.

Admit it. You love the Wii. :P


No, I hate the Wii. 



I am Washu-bot B, loyal servant of Final-Fan, the greatest scientific genius in the universe!


libellule on 19 March 2008

Because Wii can be used online ?

More seriously, I can see the interest of developping on Wii (big user base, cheaper) but I doubt Wii crowd are onlinre lover that have a lot of interest in online.



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thekitchensink on 19 March 2008
libellule said:
Because Wii can be used online ?

More seriously, I can see the interest of developping on Wii (big user base, cheaper) but I doubt Wii crowd are onlinre lover that have a lot of interest in online.

 

Virtual Console says hi. As do the people who want to play Brawl online, which is so great Nintendo's servers can't even handle it.

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bdbdbd on 19 March 2008
libellule said:
Because Wii can be used online ?

More seriously, I can see the interest of developping on Wii (big user base, cheaper) but I doubt Wii crowd are onlinre lover that have a lot of interest in online.

Actually, considering what Wiis online has to offer, the userbase doesn't need to be traditional "online crowd", to have high percentage of users online.

Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

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Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

Wojtas on 19 March 2008

Exactly. However, there is a slight problem, the developers said that they don't want to compete with retro games. On the Wii they will have the same problems, because Nintendo won't just suddenly stop letting out their retro titles. So the problem with the xbla service must be somewhere else. IMO it's all about the royalties.



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sc94597 on 19 March 2008

These games are better on the wii. Think about it. They are cheaper. You have a better creativity factor with the wiimote. YOu also don't have to say buuuut teh grafix pwn because most downloadables look the same no matter which console they are on.



Parokki on 19 March 2008

Hmm... I think it's safe to say that Nintendo is offering better support and terms of service to developers of downloadable titles than either Microsoft or Sony. The proof is convincing, although not entirely conclusive.

Hopefully this will lead to competition between the three console makers, and force all to improve what they offer to us customers.