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The Revolution Is In The Games
Dark Paladin writes "There's an interesting article over at Advanced Media Network regarding discussing how the upcoming Nintendo Revolution's ability to let players play old games and more independent developers gain access to mainstream gamers could take advantage of the Long tail approach of Internet business." From the article: "Imagine how many would-be developers that are now working on independent games, games that sell maybe only a few thousand copies online, unable to break into the console market. But if Nintendo is right, and offers maybe an inexpensive (or free, which would be better) development system for would be game makers, the field could shift. Now, they don't need to rely on that one Legend of Zelda game to sell 5,000,000 copies to be a success - they could have 1,000 developers all making microbudget games that only sell 5,000 copies each (a pittance in the game development world) and still be considered successful."
I really like Nintendo's approach here. Who cares about having all that computational power if neither Sony nor Microsoft (admitably) don't seem to care much for the games that would use it, instead opting for a more general entertainment purpose? Certainly this would be a very attractive choice for independent game developers to boost their sales and popularity of their titles, but what about game developers that want to distribute their games not-for-profit? I've been working on my own free (as in beer), open-source game for nearly a year now. I'd love the idea of seeing it played on a next-gen console one day, but I still wouldn't want to make people pay to play it. Would Nintendo still charge a "minimal fee" for games distributed on the Revolution? Or would they allow an exception for developers who wish to create and distribute games free-of-charge?
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
Except that this will open up much larger selection of games for people to choose from. Even if they aren't that whoopy, if the people who buy enjoy, the consumer /still wins/.
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That's like saying because independent films sell a fraction of the number of tickets that blockbusters sell, you should question their quality. Yes, there are plenty of sucky independent films, but there are plenty of good ones and sucky blockbusters as well. They draw different audiences.
You may be confusing quality of the game with quality of the marketing budget.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
It would only be as bad as the unregulated movie industry, and there's no quality control there. There's plenty of crappy independent movies, sure...but there's also a lot of good stuff that wouldn't ever get made by the big guys.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
...they can just call them "Beta" and add to the manuals or online help: "Nintendo is not responsible for any damage caused to your system or television. Use of these immensely cool games will void your warranty and (in the case of some insane developers) give you an incurable epileptic seizure. Nintendo will not hear claims arising from the use of these Beta games, and mails requesting support for said games will be stamped with 'I told you so', 'Fuck off', or 'I have some good news--I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to GEICO', and returned to sender."
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
There is this weird assumption that people will flock to game development!? Why? Look at Half-life expansion packs, there are only a small handful even after all these years as the premiere title for making your own addons. Everyone tries, few find success.