Jeremiah Slaczka told me that Nintendo turned their nose up to him over Scribblenauts, and look at it, it sold millions without them. Then Konami turned around and made a Japanese version.
Proof that you don't need Nintendo to be able to sell your stuff!
That was about publishing though, wasn't it?
Does Nintendo ever publish western releases for anyone that isn't Square/Capcom?
Tobor said:
Ok, szaromir, this is where we part ways. lol. I was referring to Nintendo's stance on third party games.
The fact is, you can release the shittiest game you want on a Nintendo platform. It could be absolute crap, but as long as you run a business who can afford to press the discs and pay the licensing fees, you'll get it through. I assume they treat downloads the same way.
This is about money. Nintendo needs to make sure that games are seen as worth $50, so they can continue to sell games for $50. Nintendo systems are profitable, but the real money is in software, and Nintendo has to protect that.
I'm not a fan of quantity over quality so, I might not be the best to ask about about this but.
If Nintendo actually started allowing for middle-ground development, it should be as long as the apps are in a section of their own apart from everything else, and that Nintendo have a "VETO" to take great apps over to normal shop and demand a full dev-upgrade when they reach a certain level of success (just like the Unreal licensing over $50.000 earned).
I don't think they will though. Nintendo is never going to be as open with their platforms as MS or Apple.
Honestly, the only reason I'd complain about this is because they also don't have any quality standards on boxed products. For the 3DS they really need to try and keep a hundred versions of Bratz: Babby Puppiz from being released.
Yes, their goal is to weed out the garbage that just any random person with the smallest level of game design knowledge can make by making it too expensive for them.
Seeing as they accept plenty of garbage produced by companies though, I'm not sure what their overral plan is. I guess they just really hate that $1-$10 price point.
When people say stuff like this, do they really hope that some day some Sony or whatever company overlord will sit on a throne playing all the games submitted by publishers and deciding what will and what won't be released based on his own damn opinion, rather than simply if certain criteria are met?
The shovelware met the protocols, they weren't gonna say "sorry Capcom/Konami/EA/Ubisoft, your game sucks" after they have paid for everything (and if they did, GAF would tear Nintendo a new one, lol). They have openly criticised third parties for only putting their C and D teams into Wii development then complaining about sales compared to Nintendo products in the past (so no, they don't like retail shovelware either). That is all they can do and that's all you guys should want them to do.
You can't quality control video games in this manner. And even if you could, you shouldn't. For the most part, as XNA users here have mentioned, on certain levels it does work to at least have that segment of developers separate from your main store, if not altogether not offer an avenue for them.
If I'm just starting out I'll put my games out for free and learn from the experience and hopefully later do something better that will be worthwhile enough to get noticed and be made an exception. A store that would allow me to sell my crappy first "games" wouldn't really be a good store, even if I personally would have loved that.
The motivation is to become a professional. There are stepping stones to that. Nintendo doesn't have to be another. Maybe in the future they will be, just like Microsoft only is this gen rather than years ago just like Sony still really isn't. They didn't diss anybody, they're doing their business and will expand it as and when they see fit.
Jeremiah Slaczka told me that Nintendo turned their nose up to him over Scribblenauts, and look at it, it sold millions without them. Then Konami turned around and made a Japanese version.
Proof that you don't need Nintendo to be able to sell your stuff!
Jeremiah Slaczka told me that Nintendo turned their nose up to him over Scribblenauts, and look at it, it sold millions without them. Then Konami turned around and made a Japanese version.
Proof that you don't need Nintendo to be able to sell your stuff!
So, Nintendo didn't want to publish. They didn't want to publish any of 5th Cell's other games either. What system was it on though? Nintendo DS. Name a system it would have pulled those numbers on. None of the others. Guess who still got paid? Nintendo.
Although, if Nintendo did publish it, they may have helped clean up those controls which sullied the game... =/
Which is absolute bollocks.
There are some fine, even exceptional indie games, but comparing them to the majority of Nintendo's games is stupid.
Nothing comes close to a Mario Galaxy or a Metroid Prime or a Star Fox.
I'm not a fan of quantity over quality so, I might not be the best to ask about about this but.
If Nintendo actually started allowing for middle-ground development, it should be as long as the apps are in a section of their own apart from everything else, and that Nintendo have a "VETO" to take great apps over to normal shop and demand a full dev-upgrade when they reach a certain level of success (just like the Unreal licensing over $50.000 earned).
That's kind of draconic. The Unreal liscensing is because the engine is completely free to develop on, with no royalties whatsoever until a certain point. And an engine is a costly thing to create, so they're offering a great service. Now, imagine Nintendo taking a cut from the dreaded 1$ game purchase, and then demanding a large lump sum after a certain number of sales.
There's no reason why it couldn't be like the Indie Games channel, except better organized and with a peer review process accounting for quality.
Sorry, but the wild west that is the app store and MS Indie Store are both horrendous. Clearly Nintendo wants to simply avoid that. I love my iPhone to death, but that's IN SPITE OF the gaming environment on the app store. Flash score attack game after game of varying quality, mostly awful, mostly rip offs, trying to stake their $$$ claim on the app store and make their next millionaire at $.99 a pop.
It's difficult to fault Nintendo for wanting to avoid that. Let the devs stake out their claim elsewhere, then approach the best of the best for porting to their mass market platform.
As for the quote... There's a difference in being against garage developers and that type of development not being a fit for your platform. Even the Indie marketplace on 360 is essentially a ghetto. Not a surprise that all of the true indie successes end up on XBLM, not the indie marketplace.
And the garage devs have to know this well in advance. Do iPhone, do PC, get your quality products out there, and the publishers will court you.
Do not forget the indie factor and how it distorts criticism. If (most of) these games were of the same quality, but produced by a normal studio with a normal budget, people would be bewildered by their crapiness. (Let alone if Nintendo had made them.)
They expect indie developers to somehow be able to fund development without any outside capital, and no other jobs? Oh wait, I know how - by launching their games on other platforms and possibly porting it to 3DSWare when they get prestige.
Again, way to foster creativity on your platform, Nintendo. Only accept what's already been proven elsewhere.
They have a business to run and a image to uphold. This isn't little league t-ball where everyone gets to bat and gets a trophy at the end. They don't want to risk supporting something that 1) won't make money and 2) will deteriorate the overall quality of there service and the perception of their brand.
Of course, there will always be instances of features that don't work properly and are thus underdeveloped in that sense. I distrust more the call that a game is underdeveloped because it didn't have features X and Y.
I think missing features when the game was hastily put together is underdeveloped (but whatever, we're splitting hairs right now. The point is, when a non-Nintendo company has an interesting low-budget idea, they make it a downloadable title in $1-5 price range. When Nintendo does it, they release it as a $30+ box product. In this sense, garage orindie devs would make Nintendo games overpriced on their own platform. In reality though, Nintendo will have a hard time selling them going forward anyway because consumers are getting used to the direct relation between games' budget and their prices.
They have a business to run and a image to uphold. This isn't little league t-ball where everyone gets to bat and gets a trophy at the end. They don't want to risk supporting something that 1) won't make money and 2) will deteriorate the overall quality of there service and the perception of their brand.
They have criticised companies for that. Still, protocols were met, and they couldn't tell them no (and if they did, Gaf would tear them a new one for not allowing games they may love to be released). They'd rather not have to criticise non-companies on top by reducing the protocols further. This isn't hard to get, I won't repeat it again.
Sorry, but the wild west that is the app store and MS Indie Store are both horrendous. Clearly Nintendo wants to simply avoid that. I love my iPhone to death, but that's IN SPITE OF the gaming environment on the app store. Flash score attack game after game of varying quality, mostly awful, mostly rip offs, trying to stake their $$$ claim on the app store and make their next millionaire at $.99 a pop.
Its like everyone sees Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja, goes "why doesn't Nintendo want that???", and completely overlooks all. the. shit. The App store is literally a lottery for a small developer. For every one game that makes it big, there are hundreds more that sell pittance. I guess it can be good for portfolio building? You can show a prospective publisher "hey we made this, and it was a fun game" I guess.
Alright fine, you got me there. But at the same time though, you prove my point. Look how much shovelware is on the Wii right now. Just imagine how much crap there would be if they'd allow anyone to make a game on the 3DS.
That's kind of draconic. The Unreal liscensing is because the engine is completely free to develop on, with no royalties whatsoever until a certain point. And an engine is a costly thing to create, so they're offering a great service. Now, imagine Nintendo taking a cut from the dreaded 1$ game purchase, and then demanding a large lump sum after a certain number of sales.
There's no reason why it couldn't be like the Indie Games channel, except better organized and with a peer review process accounting for quality.
Well it might be dragonic, but it's dog-eat-dog world, it just bussiness.
But lets say that there would be a cheap middleground who would be allowed to use it? Maybe Capcom thinks it won't need a full devkit, and just go with the $99 one, would only people without a company be allowed to use this type of devkit?
Do I think Nintendo could make a killing in earnings from a apple-type store, hell yeah, but I wouldn't want one personally.
Alright fine, you got me there. But at the same time though, you prove my point. Look how much shovelware is on the Wii right now. Just imagine how much crap there would be if they'd allow anyone to make a game on the 3DS.
And why would you care? Just choose games that you might like. No matter how much crap on XL Indie Games service there is, it's easy to pick up the good ones thanks to GAF's excellent monthly threads and every game has a trial. Nintendo could do something similar.
And why would you care? Just choose games that you might like. No matter how much crap on XL Indie Games service there is, it's easy to pick up the good ones thanks to GAF's excellent monthly threads and every game has a trial. Nintendo could do something similar.
Exactly, I don't care. That would be Nintendo's responsibility. They simply aren't interested in dealing with that kind of atmosphere or catering to those who want it.
Apple isn't the only company embracing new business models. I like what Sony is trying to do with the NGP and Playstation Suite. I love what Steam is doing. It's a simplification to make this Nintendo vs Apple, it's old business models versus new.
But that's the whole point though. We need some standard that helps us distinguish between a feature that a game is lacking justifiably and one that it is not. Otherwise, it is my right to claim that a game is "underdeveloped" because it's "missing" the feature of not featuring sheep, and we all know how important it is for game developers to satisfy fully consumers who want sheep in their games. Obviously, this is a ridiculous proposition.
The point is, when a non-Nintendo company has an interesting low-budget idea, they make it a downloadable title in $1-5 price range. When Nintendo does it, they release it as a $30+ box product.
And this is great business sense, if indeed that low-budget idea can have $30+ value.
In reality though, Nintendo will have a hard time selling them going forward anyway because consumers are getting used to the direct relation between games' budget and their prices.
Well it might be dragonic, but it's dog-eat-dog world, it just bussiness.
But lets say that there would be a cheap middleground who would be allowed to use it? Maybe Capcom thinks it won't need a full devkit, and just go with the $99 one, would only people without a company be allowed to use this type of devkit?
Do I think Nintendo could make a killing in earnings from a apple-type store, hell yeah, but I wouldn't want one personally.
Fostering creativity? My ass. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a world of nothing but 99 cent, copycat puzzle games.
Nintendo, keep your shit exclusive. If people want to make games on your platform, make 'em earn it. Just because Jimmy from Bumblefuck USA has a "totally awesome" game idea, doesn't mean he's entitled to making it.
Competition is good, but it's in vain when everyone is making the same thing. You let too many people in, mayhem ensues.
I think the problem is that Nintendo doesn't really do the whole "pitch a game project for Nintendo to publish" thing. Anything quirky is always internal, like EAD, but never external. If they're publishing at retail, they want titles that will blow up and sell. Games are never, ever given low or modest expectations. If they're ever pitched a game, its usually from an established developer with a known history.
When Sin and Punishment 2, Rhythm Heaven, and Elite Beat Agents were all met with moderate to low sales numbers at launch, Reggie came out and commented on his disappointment at each respective title's "disappointing" sales, without missing a beat. This kind of colors my view of NoA's own methods at projecting sales.
Apple isn't the only company embracing new business models. I like what Sony is trying to do with the NGP and Playstation Suite. I love what Steam is doing. It's a simplification to make this Nintendo vs Apple, it's old business models versus new.
You expect to see garage developer games on ps suite ? Yeah we will see about that, as far as I can see it just a way to sell psn quality content from developers like gameloft on various devices. Nintendo provided independent devs at the beginning of the year with dev kits.
It's like complaining a about valve because not every one can submit it's games to steam. Lookin at all the trash which is available on Wii and DS just shows ho relatively small the entry barrier has been, and I suppose it's even easier for 3DSWare or DSi Ware .....
Just because the AppStore is blowin up doesn't mean that everyone should or even can adopt this model.
I'm sorry but I have to side with Nintendo on this one.
The vast, vast majority of these $1-5 games on the app stores are the same tripe we used to (or still can) get for free on flash-based gaming sites...and even when they were free, they weren't worth the time to play (for me personally). It's just monetizing something that used to be free.
I love my iPhone, and I've added tons of games to it, but even stuff I paid for...usually I feel like I am wasting my time if I play them...I feel like if I have time to play a game, I want to play something like Okami, Zelda, or Uncharted 2, not Infinity Blade. Does no one else experience this? I can't be alone.
lol What the fuck does he think Wiiware and DSware sucky games uploaded every week are? That's garage games for sure. Shit is even worse than on Apple Store.
It's 2011. Having an avenue for small-scale indie development isn't "being Apple" -- in fact, Nintendo is now literally the only one of the three major platform holders who has no such program.
It doesn't have to be "anything and everything gets through," either. If Nintendo had some sort of "$500 devkit, a panel approves some portion of indie games for release" thing, even if it was fairly restrictive and didn't release a huge volume of content, I doubt you'd see any serious objections here.
It would be 6.5 million if it were a Nintendo platform. Nintendo are so generous they get an extra 5% for...deciding when to release your game, if you get paid (if you don't sell less than x you won't be paid until 24 months after release) and otherwise being the control freak that NOA were in the 80s (though you can say NOA were doing this to prevent a crash).
-PXG- said:
So every app is profitable then? If you copy make an Angry Birds or Tetris clone, you're bound to make a killing. Yeah, okay....
I think a more interesting point is would anyone give a shit about Angry Birds it was an $8 DSiWare download? The bits of quality software DSiWare actually ha,s nobody really cares about...true some of this but other parts are Nintendo's backwards lets release stuff when with like with no reason or Rhyme (unless you're in Europe in which case its always at least 3 months later and probably with a name change so you don't fucking notice its out, which DSiWare game is 3D Space Tank?
The answer is X-Spcrape. How without some basic research is anyone meant to make that correlation
)
At the same time some games are simply just doomed from the outset. Lit line for instance. Its sales between iOS and WiiWare were near equal a few weeks back. WiiWare will probably be higher lifetime (and its the more expensive one) due to that figure not including Europe (I make the assumption the region constraints on the app store aren't as backwards as Nintendo's) but the numbers we're talking about were still about mid 3k on each platform...
Smision said:
do people ever read articles before posting them (so as to post more informative thread titles)
"Because ASpple are making bucketloads of money. Nintendo only care for money therefore they should be leik apples."
Something like that anyways.
Truth is they are separate paths that can co-exist...for now. The future is the fear as Nintendo have little control in that outside of their ecosystem. They're gambling big here and in a the long run it could lose them everything but they feel that following Apple is the same outcome.
To quote the end of the article I though this bit was funny:
"The Wii has a long life in front of it," he says. "We're still sitting at $199. There are a variety of marketing tools at our disposal."
either you have to want Nintendo to be MORE difficult about letting games get on the service ("LOL every single thing on WiiWare is shit Nintendo seal my ass"), or you want them to be LESS difficult about letting games get on the service ("WTF Nintendo won't let me make a game from my parents' basement fucking indie haters"), but you can't do both.
I really think you misunderstood his quote. It's not about protecting quality of games but quality of business. That's what this is ultimately about.
To Nintendos business model, wich was ironically founded as a response to a similar rush of low entry games almost crashed the industry, is now under attack by a new wave of low level entry games that devalue the business as a whole.
I have nothing against the appstore. It's a great venue for small or upcoming developers to test the water or simply experiment. The thing I see though is that Nintendo, for better or worse is absolutely the wrong partner for such developers.
Their business model isn't really compatible with them so why anyone would actually bother is beyond me. It's not like Garage or Hobby programers have no available venues to experiment around.
PC, Appstore, Android plattforms, hell even XNA are by nature a better suited environment.
Is Nintendo missing out on a potential market? I believe they are, but from a investment-gain perspective, the real gains are so low, that it isn't really feasible for Nintendo to invest in this market.
It's 2011. Having an avenue for small-scale indie development isn't "being Apple" -- in fact, Nintendo is now literally the only one of the three major platform holders who has no such program.
It doesn't have to be "anything and everything gets through," either. If Nintendo had some sort of "$500 devkit, a panel approves some portion of indie games for release" thing, even if it was fairly restrictive and didn't release a huge volume of content, I doubt you'd see any serious objections here.
There's no reason to have any objections at all. Like you said, it is 2011. There are tons of other avenues to explore if you want those types of games. Why does Nintendo have to what everyone else is doing? Why can't they always do what they've already done? March to their own beat? They will pick and choose what they want to pick and choose like always.
It's 2011. Having an avenue for small-scale indie development isn't "being Apple" -- in fact, Nintendo is now literally the only one of the three major platform holders who has no such program.
It doesn't have to be "anything and everything gets through," either. If Nintendo had some sort of "$500 devkit, a panel approves some portion of indie games for release" thing, even if it was fairly restrictive and didn't release a huge volume of content, I doubt you'd see any serious objections here.
Nintnendo should bring back their content approval process anyways. Sony and Microsoft all have one and it's fine. It weeds out some shit sometimes. Nintendo stopped doing content approval for Wii and DS not too long after the Wii came out.
