Some interesting notes on developing for Gamecube. It should be a lot cheaper for developers to make games on the Gamecube. Hopefully Nintendo will realize that they should re-think their wallet scheme, and get as many developers on the bandwagon as they can. CNET did a great piece on Development prices for the different platforms, focusing on Nintendo. You can clearly see here how Nintendo dug a hole for themselves with N64. Hopefully they have learned their lesson. Listen up!

Enix officials were spotted on the floor of Nintendo's Space World show speaking with Nintendo executives. The popular makers of the Dragon Quest series were apparently querying Nintendo about the company's business model for Gamecube. They weren't the only ones. Electronic Arts, Square, Natsume, and Konami officials were also present and openly talked about whether or not it would make sense for them to enter the Gamecube business.

In the past, Nintendo charged a premium price to publish games on its system. Publishers had to pay Nintendo upwards of $35 per cartridge with a minimum order of 100,000 units, adding up to an expense of $3.5 million before development costs were figured in (about $1 million per game).

Re-ordering cartridges was a nightmare that sometimes took 30 to 60 days during peak selling times. These logistical headaches and high prices caused many publishers to release the majority of their titles for PlayStation. The PlayStation turn-around time was a lot less (around 10 to 15 days) due to the CD-based nature of the business model. The cost averaged between $7 and $10 per title.

With the proprietary Matsushita mini-disk, publishers were expecting the worst--that Nintendo would be charging them in the neighborhood of $20 a unit. The average cost of developing a game for the Gamecube will be around $3 million. But according to some high-profile publishers, Nintendo is going for the kill. For the first time in the history of the company, Nintendo is willing to cut deals with high-profile publishers.

This will make Nintendo's Gamecube system very palatable. To make matters even better, Nintendo isn't insisting on exclusivity. (On top of having to pay $35 for a Nintendo 64 cartridge, publishers had to guarantee in writing that the title would be exclusive to the Nintendo 64 for at least a year.)

Now with Microsoft, Sony, and Sega all competing for licenses, publishers, and gamers' attention, Nintendo is taking a different approach.

"We plan on getting very aggressive and being very competitive in all aspects of the game," said Peter Main, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing.

When queried about whether that meant lower margins on royalties and deals for some big-name publishers, he didn't comment but gave an ear-to-ear smile.

Shigeru Miyamoto echoed those sentiments during a roundtable discussion last week: "The Gamecube is the best system I have ever worked on. It might take a little work to show the big-named RPG makers just what the system can do. But I am convinced they will want to make games for our system. I know because I am personally going to show them what the system can do."