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."

Comments

Maybe the author has a minimum article length?

[ivan256]

A month or so before the March Game Developers Conference, Nintendo's PR agency approached us about a hush-hush new content initiative that the company had been cooking up [...] What's more interesting is that Nintendo isn't only seeking WiiWare from established publishers and developers like Ubisoft and Sega. At a Nintendo developer's conference earlier this week, the company informed attendees that it was seeking from indie developers as well. Shorter, original, more creative games from small teams with big ideas;

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.

Re:Maybe the author has a minimum article length?

[ElleyKitten]

The XBox's strength is in implementation, not innovation. Online gaming was old-hat by the time the original XBox came out, and it wasn't even really new for consoles. What Microsoft did was make a good online gaming system for consoles. By the same token, the 360 doesn't have anything completely new and different, in the same way the wiimote is, but it implemented a lot of old ideas in good ways. When it works.

Re:Maybe the author has a minimum article length?

[cowscows]

I've always thought that the Xbox has pretty much gotten a fair deal on slashdot. Of course there's been the fanboys from either side who refuse to give an inch regardless of the realities, and still a general dislike/distrust of Microsoft. But overall, it seems that the general mindset (generalizing is bad, I know, but sometimes interesting) is that Xbox Live has been a monumental step in online console gaming, and MS did a pretty darn good job with it. MS also received a good bit of praise for their decision to include a HD standard with the Xbox, and a good amount of criticism for making it optional for the 360. The 360 appears to have less innovative stuff in it, but still has a fairly positive vibe to it around here as far as I can tell.

All that being said, MS tends to miss the mark with new products far more often than they really get it right, so skepticism isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it doesn't seem that the majority of the /. crowd has a problem acknowledging when they do something well. At worst, a lot of us wonder why they can't be more consistent at it with all the resources they have.

Re:Really?

[morari]

I'll believe it when I see small garage-style shop priced Wii dev kits. If I remember correctly, the Wii SDK is only $2,000. While that is certainly a lot of money, it's really a drop in the bucket when compared to other consoles. I don't see it being anywhere near impossible for a small, dedicated development team to raise that amount of money.

Re:Great!

[AKAImBatman]

Excite Truck was good, not great.

Sacrilege! If jumping a newly formed mountain at 200MPH then scraping a tree in midair thus resulting in a barrel roll which lands you upside down as you skip off the mountain peaks before diving headlong onto the track where you mysteriously manage to land upright AND get a speed boost for a Nice Landing doesn't bring a smile to your face, I don't know what will. That game is crazy. CRAZY, I tell you. My wife played it and managed to smash, bump, crush, ram, sink, skip, splash, slide, crash, flip, and careen her way through Fiji. Result? S-Class rating!

Excite Truck: The only racing game that rewards bad driving! :P

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 have heard nothing but good things about Rayman and Elebits, save for that Rayman takes a little bit of time to warm up to. Both make excellent use of the Wii Remote and may be exactly what you're looking for.

Re: Rayman & Calibration...

[SetupWeasel]

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.

Re:Really?

[Mattintosh]

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.