Topic: Trent Oster Talks WiiWare and Wii U

[Victor von Zeppelin]

I just had to register here when I saw this comment thread. I totally agree with the writers, and with what Oster has to say. The sheer belief that Nintendo isn't in a bad spot is almost religious.

Back when I was an ardent little Nintendo fan boy (like when the wii came out ) I would have stood up for the company's side, but now after years of being disenfranchised and my hopes destroyed I lost all real Interest in them. And the same can be said for nearly everyone on the net who once held out hope for Nintendo. Devs in particular need to speak out to get Nintendo to acknowledge that their platform is soo bad. As previous posters have been saying, the app store method is where a lot of smaller titles should be going. In Nintendo case, its really hard to buy games like that. In all other markets, Mario Bros wii would have been a downloadable game, sold for a Tenner, because that's what it's worth. With nintendo's model, no such luck.

[ejamer]

Not sure how much it is now, but in 2009 Apple had a requirement of $150 in sales in a country before you got paid.

Which is incredibly reasonable. Even on the overcrowded and under-advertised app store, where devs quickly learned that naming conventions and pricing structure can matter more than game quality, getting 150 sales shouldn't be that hard.

... In all other markets, Mario Bros wii would have been a downloadable game, sold for a Tenner, because that's what it's worth. With nintendo's model, no such luck.

Wow. Totally disagree with this statement. The same argument was thrown at Rayman Origins and I disagreed strongly there too.  Just because it's 2D or part of the platformer genre doesn't mean the experience is worth less than other blockbuster games.


A game's "worth" isn't the same for everyone, but I hate the mentality that race-to-the-bottom pricing has created because it means that developers will have lower budgets to create high-quality games in genres that I enjoy most. Sure there are cheaper alternatives - but there is a reason why some brands/developers command a premium: because they are consistently better game experiences that took more effort to design/test/create.