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."

Comments

Interesting idea...

[RootsLINUX]

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?

Re:Yes, but...

[porcupine8]

Yes, but, if they finally do have access to this great money making market, and most of them still only sell 5,000 copies, perhaps that sheds some light on the quality of the games.

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.