Slashdot Mirror
Details on Nintendo's Original Downloadable Content
HaymarketRiot writes "N'Gai Croal from Newsweek has given us a broad outline of Nintendo's plans for downloadable original content. To be called 'WiiWare', the company will be selling these all-new games via the Wii's Virtual Store for Wii points. Not only are they looking to big-name developers for these titles, but small garage-style shops as well. 'Shorter, original, more creative games from small teams with big ideas; these are the buzzwords that you'll be hearing from Nintendo when its Wednesday announcement goes wide. Fils-Aime told us that while Nintendo, as the retailer, would itself determine the appropriate pricing for each game on a per-title bases, the games themselves would not be vetted by Nintendo. Instead, Nintendo would only check the games for bugs and compatibility, with developers and publishers responsible for securing [a rating lower than AO with the ESRB].' For more, N'Gai has an interview with Reggie Fils-Aime on the subject. Unfortunately, we won't be seeing a finished product until 2008."
This idea is excellent. I love using the Wii Virtual Console for the sole benefit of not having to change discs in order to play a game. Adding more games to this category can only be good, and the fact that Nintendo is taking a largely 'hands-off' approach to quality control should provide for a comparatively wide selection.
So, the same thing that Microsoft and Sony are already doing? Why's it so hush-hush then? Wouldn't they want to tell people ASAP that they're not missing the boat?
Article summary: Wii games for download next year, actual article content with interview next week. The rest is fluff.
I'm very much looking forward to this. So far, the most fun I've had on the Wii is still the first game, Wii Sports. I was -so- hoping that Wii Play would be as good, but it's nothing like it.
Super Paper Mario is nice and fun, but took almost no advantage of the uniqueness of the system. Excite Truck was good, not great. Trauma Center was better than the DS version, but still not as much fun as Wii Sports.
I'm looking for more little games like the Wii Sports ones that are fun solo, and a ton of fun with friends, and I'm willing to pay for them. I think this plan will bring those titles.
If I had a little more motivation, I'd gladly spend the ~$2k for the Wii dev kit and write my own games. Unfortunately, I still haven't even managed to motivate myself to do it on the PC for free. Some day...
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
This is welcome news. I'm hoping we will see some real quality titles like Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne that are already over on XBox Live Arcade.......
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I see three possible solutions. Farm testing out to India, automate testing (have a bot go through and check each code branch for compatibility or something), or just not do very much testing. (Or take a loss, but this is frickin' Nintendo).
Okay, so supposing some combination of the above gets you down to $100 or so, you still need to worry about getting rated by the ESRB; Nintendo can't control the pricing of that. No, I don't think it's realistic to expect this to be an inexpensive distribution channel.
Just rename "Manhunt 2" to "Cotton Candy and Kitty Cats" and release it this way.
Keep in mind though the 512MB of built-in memory and (current) inability to load games/saves directly from SD cards. Hopefully we'll see a firmware upgrade with this that lets the Wii load from SD cards and/or external hard drives via the USB ports on the back, but otherwise I imagine we'll be burning through that 512MB a lot quicker than we have been with the VC alone. That being said, its still fairly exciting news and I'm looking forward to picking up some new content to sit side by side with my favorite retro games.
Define "a lot". As I understand it Wii dev kits currently go for $1000 or so--they just haven't been sold to the general public so far.
Last time I checked (when I first really paid attention to the Wii after E3 06 I think it was) the Dev kit was like $2500 (maybe $2000, definitely more than $1000 though). The problem was that the kits were only available to established companies, you had to provide a list of games that your company produced. Hopefully, this initiative changes that restriction. I would still love to get a Dev kit to play around with.
-- toolie
Actually the "sensitivity setting" in the Wii menu refers of the sensitivity of the IR camera in the Wiimote not the motion of the cursor across the screen. It is meant to allow you to filter out dimmer IR sources that may confuse the Wii.
Indeed. Which would leave only 32MB of memory Subtract 4MB for the N64 RAMBUS memory and you're down to 28. Another 4MB for the expansion pack when in use and we're down to 24. (Though I don't think any games use the expansion pack yet?) 24-28MB is the amount of space the emulator+OS has to fit within. That's not a whole lot of space by modern standards. While I think Nintendo could do it, they may be playing it safe to allow for bigger games in the future.
The Wii has 64MB of GDDR3 main memory, 24MB of 1T-SRAM (!) for the GPU's use, and and extra 3MB of GPU cache/working memory for the framebuffer and whatnot. Basically, the 24MB isn't really open for general purpose usage. At least, that's not how the known specs present it.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The Wii SDK's price is not disclosed to the public, and is likely covered by NDA. At one time it was reported to be about $2000, but that could be an early version, a specific contract price with a single developer, or even just plain incorrect.
Then there's the unfortunately reality that it will cost you not only money, but also your soul. If you're not convinced of this, go read their criteria for becoming a Wii developer at their WarioWorld site.
If you read that page carefully, you'll note that even if you can pay for the dev kit, you have to be "accepted" as a licensed Nintendo developer first. During this acceptance process, they don't give a crap whether you can pay for the dev kit or not. You can't order one until you're accepted. But to be accepted, you have to be an established developer with an existing game portfolio, and the games can't suck. You also have to have an office. So no working from home. (This is supposedly to keep Nintendo's proprietary stuff "secure". As if an office can't be robbed.) It also states an approximate price for dev kits: $2500 to $10,000. It also states that they expect "financial stability".
Nintendo is going to make sure you're going to make and finish a game. Not just any game, but a good quality game. You can't just order a dev kit to "play with" or to make "indie" or "hobbyist" games. They want commercial games, and if you can't make one, you can't have a dev kit.
You're not seriously comparing the complexity of a Gameboy emulator to that of a Nintendo 64 emulator, are you?
Sure he is, and with good reason. The DS actually has quite a complex architecture (main CPU, one 3D rasterizer + T&L unit, two 2D rasterizers), with most of the features offered by the N64.
The typical size of N64 emulators on the PC/Mac are in the 1-3MB range, even with all the fancy features you expect. You can also find them in the Sub-1MB range for platforms that are short on memory.
So yes, it is certainly reasonable.
Some advanced features like JITting (an actual possibility since Nintendo knows both their system and their software) will chew through memory like candy.
Why would you waste time with JIT recompilation when you know the source and target platforms, AND control distribution? You can do an optimized conversion before you even offer the game for download, and save yourself the memory.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
The german USK costs around 250-1500 , depending on the length and complexity of the title. The BPjM will ban your game for free. No idea about BBFC, PEGI and whatever other rating organizations might be around there if you want to publish a title outside of the USA.
I think there are some misunderstandings about what it takes for you to be accepted into Nintendo's development program. Earlier, Nintendo was pretty strict and only accepted established developers. That has changed somewhat. You can find the details at http://warioworld.com/, Nintendo's dev site, but here are the important points for pepole who aren't currently game developers:
More on this page.