Cathode Tan - Games, Media and Geek Stuff
logo design by man bytes blog

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Wii Indie Program On Hold?

Nintendo has been saying that they will have programs to get independent developers on-board with Wii, presumably via the Wii Ware section of the Wii Shop Channel.

It seems that these developers are experiencing the same pain gamers wanting to acquire Wii in the first place are still running into, though: Wii development kits are reportedly very difficult to get a hold of. One such indie, Water Cooler Games ("videogames with an agenda"), says they've heard this is because "Wii publishers are taking all of the available inventory, and more".
-- N-Sider.com: [Wii] Report: indies unable to obtain Wii devkits

Course, this is probably just simply supply and demand. The Wii is outselling even the big N's expectations at the moment and possibly a few bigger studios are jumping on the bandwagon. Considering we don't even have network play for the Wii, Nintendo is clearly going to take some time to flush out the big picture.

And that's not odd for this generation. Microsoft adds media downloads. Sony will follow suit later on. The nature of these machines is that they aren't just toasters ... they're upgradeable toasters.


tagged: ,

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ian has expressed his disdain for the Wii and the Wii-mote in the past, arguing (as far as I'm concerned) just off the point (link).

If I were more paranoid, I'd imagine that he found Wii bashing to be a good tool for gaining some attention and tried to recreate the scenario.

Wait a minute... I am that paranoid, aren't I?

Josh said...

Entirely possible. Even if he's right, though, I can't read it as an indictment. I would expect Nintendo to focus on larger studios.

Heck, I might even rather they did if, like the Wii Network, they're just trying to make sure things get right.

And I think your optimism on web-based games for the Wii might pan out. It's actually a pretty interesting platform to code for.