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OffTopic > Nintendo announces indie developer solution for Wii: WiiWare

#132634 - PhoenixSoft - Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:48 am

http://gigaom.com/2007/06/27/wiiware/

Quote:
Nintendo?s Wii gaming system has been a hit on the marketplace, but to keep the momentum, the company is making a strategic bet, and turning it into a developer platform. With enough developer momentum, iconic products say an iPod or Facebook, can become a mass market phenomenon.

Nintendo today announced a new indie developer platform for its widely successful Wii console, likely to launch in early 2008. Dubbed WiiWare, the service is said to enable developers to create smallish, new games via download on the motion-controlled system. ?WiiWare brings new levels of creativity and value to the ever-growing population of Wii owners,? Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime said in a press statement. ?Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace,? he added. Details about the upcoming projects and prices have yet to be determined.

This isn?t the first time downloadable games have graced consoles, however. Both Microsoft and Sony currently offer downloadable games on their Live and Network platforms respectively, though their indie friendliness has been questioned due to the high cost of development and strict license regulations.

Nintendo claims the possibilities of its service are ?limited only by the imaginations of developers,? but the company conveniently omits the fact that Wii only houses a tiny amount of internal flash memory (512MB). System owners and developers will therefore need to explore other external storage options depending on how large the games end up being.

Still, the news is significant for several reasons. First, it reminds us that you don?t need the most technically advanced product to build a loyal community; only one that interests people. As a result, Nintendo will now be able to create a new sub-economy of users on top of its existing 8.5 million Wii base. Second, it shows that Nintendo appreciates the current trend of nano-type projects like MySpace Widgets, Facebook Apps, and any other company that sells to a community of a million plus members.


I'm sure this doesn't surprise anyone. They couldn't fall behind Microsoft (with XNA Game Studio Express) or Sony (with the ability to use Linux).

I just wish they would hurry up and give us a solution for the DS.

#132635 - PhoenixSoft - Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:55 am

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/06/27/reggie-on-his-big-plans-for-a-little-nintendo-wiiware.aspx

It sounds like you still need to become an authorised developer, and buy dev hardware from Nintendo or IS.

That's a shame.

#132650 - tepples - Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:44 pm

And you still need to get an ESRB rating (which costs in the neighborhood of $2000 to $3000 given the source that this Wikipedia article cites) for each title.
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#132657 - Lynx - Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:42 pm

Quote:
Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace


Yeah.. somehow I figured "small budgets" in that sentence would = $10,000
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#132662 - spinal_cord - Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:58 pm

You won't be seeing me putting any thing on there then. My job gets me enough money to pay the bill and not much else. I'm not spending tones of money to do what I can do with a freeware flash compiler and the internet channel.
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#132734 - tepples - Fri Jun 29, 2007 12:46 am

spinal_cord wrote:
I'm not spending tones of money to do what I can do with a freeware flash compiler and the internet channel.

Which freeware flash compiler are you using? And does the internet channel support sending Wii Remote button presses to any domain other than wiicade.com?
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#132916 - RegalSin - Sun Jul 01, 2007 5:23 pm

So they just made a weaker version of the software/hardware???

I would rather talk with somebody at assembler/digitpress and buy some dev hardware under $800.

Even ebay or Yahoo Japan seems a better deal then buying something direct from any system provider.
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#132943 - Dood77 - Sun Jul 01, 2007 11:39 pm

So to sum it all up, if I read the second article correctly, developers now have the option to publish software on the virtual console "WiiWare" section. Thats all, you still have to get the same SDK, you still have to get an ESRB rating, etc.
"All our SDKs and dev tools are already--I don't want to call them inexpensive--they're darn near free to developers." To developers. This isn't any better than the XBox360's "homebrew" option.
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#133068 - zzo38computer - Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:56 am

tepples wrote:
....And does the internet channel support sending Wii Remote button presses to any domain other than wiicade.com?


Yes it does, read the Opera web site, but it doesn't do very much (actually, somewhere it says you can do more but you have to pay). But, it still isn't very good that way, you would be better to use the Wiimote on your computer with Bluetooth (some bluetooth adapters don't work and some do work, you have to figure out which one it is).

Maybe you could also figure out some way to add a switch to Wii to boot a different code (from a different CPU if required), using the built-in USB, Bluetooth, GameCube controller ports, SD card slot. Another way to do it is to make it so that if you insert a homebrew GameCube DVD you can connect the USB, Bluetooth, SD card slot, to somethings that the GameCube mode can access. I hope someone can make a mod-chip like that, it would be useful (including diagrams for making it by yourself).
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#133074 - StoneCypher - Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:35 am

Tepples: there are only three free flash compilers, of which only one can target the Flash 7 machine - MTASC. The others - mxmlc/flex and haXe - cannot target the wii.

As far as the button presses, only the left click and the D-Pad. None of the buttons have bindings or events (they're all locked to browser chrome behavior like zooming and calling up the system menu.) D-Pad is bound to arrow key presses, which is surprising and awesome.
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