PS3 : hope you weren't getting one

[Saist]

Now, there are some caveats to actually being the lowest class indie developer, such as you have to produce a certain amount of content by a certain amount of time, and that you may not retain full rights to the game. E.g., you create something that takes off like wildfire, Nintendo could reserve full rights to make a sequel or use your content how they want to.

dunno... http://www.warioworld.com/ still doesn't show up any word about what is the license for the independent developer, so this concept, even if it has been said by an inportant nintendo imployee, may not be final or official.

depending on the details, something on these roots might scare independent developers instead of attracting them

well, all I really know once it gets to that level is from what leaked about the Q funding agreement (The agreement that got Brownie Brown started up and brought Squaresoft back to publishing games for Nintendo systems)

I'm not sure what all the details are on the indie side right now, although given the relatively low barrier of entry, I'm halfway tempted to find out... problem being that I code like a drunk monkey.

[Jack McSlay]

I don't doubt the Q funding may have a license of that sort, if nintendo is helping the developer monetarily it's pretty fair to get a slice of the pie, but forcing independent developers to agree that nintendo will claim a good amount of rights over the games they make while nintendo didn't really have anything to do with its development sounds really tyrannical. deviantART lost several artists that way.

so I'm just on standby to see what is the final official word on the Wii's independent developer agreement.

[Cvstos]

saist:

Actually, I think the percentage of people with HDDs is higher than that.  I've sold maybe 2 Core systems since the machine came in with regular supply.  Everyone else has bought the premium system, and I have sold maybe 2 memory cards, ever.  Plus, the Xbox Live market penetration is upwards of 60%, and most people online would have the HDD, I'd imagine.  All the best features of Xbox Live require it.

Granted, I haven't seen official numbers, but our store sells a LOT of Xbox stuff so I can usually get a feel for the Xbox community and market pretty easily.

As for the dev kit, $2000k and a business license is still too much for me to swing.  I'd rather get the free or $99/year XNA kit, especially considering that you can use XNA to make Windows XP and Vista titles as well (and Windows has a WAY bigger available market than any game system).  Hell, if I wanted to make a 360 game I might just make a Windows game using non-hardware-specific coding and port the thing to 360 real quick.  Not that I could make a complicated game, mind you.  Maybe in a few years, but not now.  It'd be easy enough on hardware to run on either just fine.

Now, it is nice that the Wii has a relatively low barrier to entry, but right now I think Microsoft is beating them a bit there.  Although both are doing way better than Sony, who may wind up seeing their own hubris as their downfall (how appropriate).

[Saist]

saist:

Actually, I think the percentage of people with HDDs is higher than that.  I've sold maybe 2 Core systems since the machine came in with regular supply.  Everyone else has bought the premium system, and I have sold maybe 2 memory cards, ever.  Plus, the Xbox Live market penetration is upwards of 60%, and most people online would have the HDD, I'd imagine.  All the best features of Xbox Live require it.

I can only go on the numbers Microsoft announces, and I have to keep in mind that when it comes to Xbox Live, that is a pure worldwide thing. Now, if Microsoft wants to step back and say "hey, we were joking at Leizpig, we actually have higher than 50% rate on harddrive adoption" fine, Microsoft can do that.

Now, it is nice that the Wii has a relatively low barrier to entry, but right now I think Microsoft is beating them a bit there.  Although both are doing way better than Sony, who may wind up seeing their own hubris as their downfall (how appropriate).

This got me actually looking through the XNA documentation and the Games Express beta development Kit : http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/gse/

What I'm having to keep in mind is that the free kits leave out many of the tools and libraries that the official kits get. Now, I'm more familar with the PS2 LDK (Linux Dev Kit) in this reguard, and the dev kits for the original Xbox than the Xbox 360.

In the case of the PS2 LDK kit you had most of the tools that Official Developers got, but you were missing things like the lightweight stripped MIPS Linux Kernel, and access to the I/O and some of the Audio handling systems. The free XNA kit appears to be under similar restrictions here ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/gse/readme/default.aspx ). While there isn't anything major missing from Microsoft's XNA package, this isn't the same set of tools that you get with the official development kit.

In the case of the original Xbox, again, while you could develop code that would run on both the Xbox and a standard Windows PC, it wasn't that easy. The official Xbox development kit had a stripped NT5 kernel and some custom libraries that were not made available for the "normal" Windows platform.

The same is still true with XNA.

The point I'm trying to make here, and this is the point I tried to make early to Paavo, is that these comparisons are invalid. This situation is like comparing Apples and Oranges.

I am not comparing the Nintendo Development Kit to the free XNA development Kit. I am not comparing the Nintendo development kit to the Linux Operating System and the IBM provided Cell and PPC development tools.

I am comparing the Nintendo Development Kit to it's Direct Equivelents from Microsoft and Sony.

Sony's Official Playstation3 development kit is anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000

Microsoft's Official Development kit is over $10,000

Nintendo's development kit is under $2000

It's not even a comparison. It's not even a contest from a developers point of view.

Now, if you do want to talk about XNA, and if you do want to talk about Linux and the IBM Tools, then no, Nintendo doesn't have anything to offer there, or to those groups who would use those tools.

[Jack McSlay]

saist:

As for the dev kit, $2000k and a business license is still too much for me to swing.  I'd rather get the free or $99/year XNA kit, especially considering that you can use XNA to make Windows XP and Vista titles as well (and Windows has a WAY bigger available market than any game system).  Hell, if I wanted to make a 360 game I might just make a Windows game using non-hardware-specific coding and port the thing to 360 real quick.  Not that I could make a complicated game, mind you.  Maybe in a few years, but not now.  It'd be easy enough on hardware to run on either just fine.

the $2000 kit + business license  is for people who want to start kicking  in full-featured games for mass distribution in disc copies.
as for what will be distributed via virtual console using the SDKs of older consoles, it's still unclear if the developers will need the same dev kits and therefore comply with the same requirements as big developers or there will be a simpler license which will appeal for a much wider amount of developers.

according to this - http://www.warioworld.com/apply/wii.html it seems that the requirements are mostly to ensure the company will be able to mantain confidential information. and I don't see why they would need to keep confidential information about consoles they don't even support themselves anymore, and several of such info has already leaked.

[Tapewolf]

Hell, if I wanted to make a 360 game I might just make a Windows game using non-hardware-specific coding and port the thing to 360 real quick.

I have no idea what OS is running on the '360, but since it's supposed to have an ARM or PPC core I kind of doubt it's your normal Windows NT base.  If MS have managed to keep the PPC-specific parts free of bit-rot since they abandoned it about 10 years ago, I'll be impressed.

You might get lucky with a recompile like that, you might not.  I for one am still trying to understand why the same code works on WM2003 and proper Win32, but not on CE.NET even though WM2003 is CE.NET with a different shell.

[Manawolf]

Unfortunately, from the sounds of it, all the crappy half-assed titles are going to be jumping onto the Wii for a quick buck, if Nintendo allows it.

[Kenji]

Unfortunately, from the sounds of it, all the crappy half-assed titles are going to be jumping onto the Wii for a quick buck, if Nintendo allows it.

Nintendo is giving the program to make games for those people who want to make games but can't afford to produce them or get a publisher.
Basically, the Virtual Console games will cost money, and the created games can be placed there as well. I'm not sure if the newly created games will cost money, but I'm assuming they cost much of anything unless they become famous, if at all.

[Saist]

Nintendo is giving the program to make games for those people who want to make games but can't afford to produce them or get a publisher.
Basically, the Virtual Console games will cost money, and the created games can be placed there as well. I'm not sure if the newly created games will cost money, but I'm assuming they cost much of anything unless they become famous, if at all.

From what I understand, Nintendo's approach is more Steam like than Microsoft Xbox live like.

In other words, if you want to host the project yourself, but make it accessable through Virtual Console you can, similar to how you can get to Half-Life and Half-Life 2 mods from the Steam program. For example, lets say you make a custom map for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Your map, while free, could be accessed through Virtual Console. A more specific example givin was Animal Crossing. Lets say somebody makes a new wall texture, or a special item for the next Animal Crossing. They can put their item up on Virtual Console for others to download.

If you are selling a game directly, then you can also sell it through Virtual Console, for example "Red Orchestra" or "The Ship" which can be purchased through Steam, but can be purchased elsewhere.

Then there is the full blown option, as if you are part of Nintendo. Again, in comparison to Steam, this would be like Half-Life2, which as those of us who have Steam, you can't possibly avoid seeing it or reading about it.

Basically the point is that if you are using Virtual Console as a distrobution for your game, people are going to have to pay. If you are counting on people paying for your game...

Unfortunately, from the sounds of it, all the crappy half-assed titles are going to be jumping onto the Wii for a quick buck, if Nintendo allows it.

That won't be a problem. If you make a crappy half-assed title, nobodies going to buy it, and Nintendo probably is going to write you off as unprofitable (and you probably remember what happened to the last unprofitable write-off, RareWare which went on to cost Microsoft several million dollars that is probably never going to be recouped)

[Paavo]

Woah, this guy has it all figured out and the Wii isn't even out yet.

Congratulations Wii, you truly were the only hope for indie game development!!!

Pssth, what a bunch O' bullshit.

The best way to ensure & make room for indie development, would be to cut all the costs like producing gaming boxes/DVDs/manuals etc. and have people design their games for free/minimum fee, and distribute trough an internet marketplace like e.g. the Live. This way the indie developers actually might get paid.

Now if Nintendo is trying something similar, like it no doubt will, it will need to make sure their customers are willing to purchase more additional storage space. 

Reporting your post to the mods.

Contrary to popular belief, everything does NOT belong in the DMFA subforum. Aka being a 5 yrs old isn't exactly the mentality inside these woods. Aka check your mannerism when inside these other areas. Newbie.

[Jack McSlay]

Unfortunately, from the sounds of it, all the crappy half-assed titles are going to be jumping onto the Wii for a quick buck, if Nintendo allows it.

That won't be a problem. If you make a crappy half-assed title, nobodies going to buy it, and Nintendo probably is going to write you off as unprofitable (and you probably remember what happened to the last unprofitable write-off, RareWare which went on to cost Microsoft several million dollars that is probably never going to be recouped)

it someone does a half-assed game that nobody sells... its likely nintendo won't do anything, because the person may not be giving profit, but is not giving expenses either. if nintendo did nothing against Titus for creating a game that became popular due to being no-assed (Superman 64) they're likely not going to do anything about bad indie developers either.

Rare is different because nintendo was paying them, since they were first-perty developers.

[Saist]

Unfortunately, from the sounds of it, all the crappy half-assed titles are going to be jumping onto the Wii for a quick buck, if Nintendo allows it.

That won't be a problem. If you make a crappy half-assed title, nobodies going to buy it, and Nintendo probably is going to write you off as unprofitable (and you probably remember what happened to the last unprofitable write-off, RareWare which went on to cost Microsoft several million dollars that is probably never going to be recouped)

it someone does a half-assed game that nobody sells... its likely nintendo won't do anything, because the person may not be giving profit, but is not giving expenses either. if nintendo did nothing against Titus for creating a game that became popular due to being no-assed (Superman 64) they're likely not going to do anything about bad indie developers either.

Rare is different because nintendo was paying them, since they were first-perty developers.

The problem with that is that you assume that the Nintendo of today is the same Nintendo of the N64.

They are not, and have proven so on a regular basis over the past couple of years.

This is not 1995. This is not 1996. This is not 1997, 98, 99, 2000, 2001, or whatever. This is 2006 and applying behavioral concepts that have not been demonstrated in a relative decade, doesn't work.

[Paavo]

The problem with that is that you assume that the Nintendo of today is the same Nintendo of the N64.

Yup, this is the Nintendo of the Game Cube era. That totally was the biggest hit in home console gaming & an era of right choices by Nintendo!

All you Nintendoholics have speculated endlessly on how Nintendo will now "win", and now you are beginning to see these speculations as the truth. Nothing but time will reveal what will actually happen.

Thus far the X0 has handled their shit pretty decently, even in making room for indie development, and we can only wait & see what will happen with Nintendo & Sony.

[Aridas]

Paavo. Drugs. Off of them. Now.

Especially for this random load of shit you decided to smear around:

Contrary to popular belief, everything does NOT belong in the DMFA subforum. Aka being a 5 yrs old isn't exactly the mentality inside these woods. Aka check your mannerism when inside these other areas. Newbie.

[Jack McSlay]

The problem with that is that you assume that the Nintendo of today is the same Nintendo of the N64.

They are not, and have proven so on a regular basis over the past couple of years.

This is not 1995. This is not 1996. This is not 1997, 98, 99, 2000, 2001, or whatever. This is 2006 and applying behavioral concepts that have not been demonstrated in a relative decade, doesn't work.

basically you're saying that nintendo will turn down games that doesn't seem good to them? that was the nintendo of Pre-N64 era, which did retarted mistakes such as taking off all blood from Mortal Kombat and caused Sony to eat the console gaming market

no console company these days will turn down games that appear to be half - assed unless they're the ones the company is financing. whatever game that sells means profit for nintendo when they're not the ones developing nor publishing them, not matter how bad it is.

getting games for a console is like mining, you can just take what's obviously valuable form the surface, or you can get big chunks of land and bring a lot more valuable except you're bringing a lot of crap along as well

[Damaris]

Contrary to popular belief, everything does NOT belong in the DMFA subforum. Aka being a 5 yrs old isn't exactly the mentality inside these woods. Aka check your mannerism when inside these other areas. Newbie.

Paavo is the proud winner of a one day ban for violated Rule #1- No Racial Slurs!  Congratulations, Paavo!

When you do get to read this, just so you are aware: this is not ICVD, so you might want to check YOUR mannerisms when you drop by next.

[Saist]

The problem with that is that you assume that the Nintendo of today is the same Nintendo of the N64.

They are not, and have proven so on a regular basis over the past couple of years.

This is not 1995. This is not 1996. This is not 1997, 98, 99, 2000, 2001, or whatever. This is 2006 and applying behavioral concepts that have not been demonstrated in a relative decade, doesn't work.

basically you're saying that nintendo will turn down games that doesn't seem good to them? that was the nintendo of Pre-N64 era, which did retarted mistakes such as taking off all blood from Mortal Kombat and caused Sony to eat the console gaming market

no console company these days will turn down games that appear to be half - assed unless they're the ones the company is financing. whatever game that sells means profit for nintendo when they're not the ones developing nor publishing them, not matter how bad it is.

getting games for a console is like mining, you can just take what's obviously valuable form the surface, or you can get big chunks of land and bring a lot more valuable except you're bringing a lot of crap along as well

And that assumes that Nintendo is the same as the Nintendo before the N64.

Quit living in the past and please join the present. I'm sure you have heard of the saying that past performance is no indication of future performance. Have you heard of it?

Quit trying to apply about what you think about Nintendo, and start trying to apply what we KNOW about Nintendo, and how the Nintendo of today operates.

And for dear lord, quoting IGN? That's like quoting Wikipedia. (and for reference in case the comparison is lost on some people, Wikipedia has a reputation for being about as accurate as a StarWars Clone Trooper Circa Episode4 original release).

Anyways, the point that I'm making is that Nintendo is giving people a chance with the Virtual console to make games at the same level, and on the same developer relations, that major 3rd party publishers get. Nintendo is giving independant and Garage developers a path to retail sales that they certainly aren't going to get from Sony, and may or may not get from Microsoft.

But, if you can't produce, or you don't produce, that probably means a termination of your license to create any future content.

Now, earlier you wanted to make the statement that Nintendo didn't punish Titus. Excuse me for bursting your bubble, but how exactly was it Nintendo's job to punish Titus? That's like saying the President of the USA is in charge of Gas Prices. Sorry, no. Doesn't work that way. Reality is not there.

The free market punished Titus. They took a soaking on expenses for the license to make Superman content. They took a soaking on consumer goodwill. All Nintendo did was give Titus a platform to make a game on. It's not Nintendo's responsibility to ensure that all that content is good. If the content isn't good, then consumers don't buy that content, plain and simple. End of Story. Many would claim that Titus still hasn't recovered from that bomb, and I for one would agree with that.

In reguards to the Virtual Console, if you do decide to go full bore and work as a Nintendo developer, then you are expected to produce. If you don't, that doesn't mean Nintendo has to support you or take responsibility for your actions or your product.

[Jack McSlay]

Now, earlier you wanted to make the statement that Nintendo didn't punish Titus. Excuse me for bursting your bubble, but how exactly was it Nintendo's job to punish Titus? That's like saying the President of the USA is in charge of Gas Prices. Sorry, no. Doesn't work that way. Reality is not there.

The free market punished Titus. They took a soaking on expenses for the license to make Superman content. They took a soaking on consumer goodwill. All Nintendo did was give Titus a platform to make a game on. It's not Nintendo's responsibility to ensure that all that content is good. If the content isn't good, then consumers don't buy that content, plain and simple. End of Story. Many would claim that Titus still hasn't recovered from that bomb, and I for one would agree with that.

In reguards to the Virtual Console, if you do decide to go full bore and work as a Nintendo developer, then you are expected to produce. If you don't, that doesn't mean Nintendo has to support you or take responsibility for your actions or your product.

that's exactly my point.it costs little to no money for nintendo when a crap of a game makes no sells, and for a VC game that makes no sells, it will cost only a small portion of HD space. Nintendo didn't do anything to Titus's license because they were giving nintendo money. Nintendo kicked Rare because they were taking away money. That's the philosophy sony taught them

and I have no idea why it doesn't apply to VC as well, therefore there I see no reason why nintendo should turn down people who don't stay up to standards.

There's no such thing as taking away a license because the developer isn't producing. That kind of thing is dealt between financier and developer, not console maker and developer, and the financier is not necessarily (and not often) the console manufacturer. After granting a license for a developer, Nintendo doesn't really care if the developer will actually make games for it. If a company gets licensed and then they are unable to make Wii games, that's the developer's problem, not Nintendo's.

[Manawolf]

The thing is, Rare used to be a kickass game developer.  They made the DK series, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Star Fox, tons of great games and series.  They just went to hell when they signed onto Microsoft.

[Kenji]

The thing is, Rare used to be a kickass game developer.  They made the DK series, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Star Fox, tons of great games and series.  They just went to hell when they signed onto Microsoft.

Well, they only made one Starfox, which everyone seems to like the least of them all. And everyone seemed to give DK64 a bad review. I liked em both, myself.
Of course, my Rare love lies in Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Diddy Kong Racing, the SNES and 64 DK games, Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie and Grunty's Revenge, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and a few others I can't recall. was Turok by Rare? I forget.

But yeah, it was funny seeing the money Microsoft put into Rare flop horribly. Though I was saddened to hear that they made the Conker sequel bad...

[Manawolf]

It wasn't even a sequel.  Conker for Xbox was a fricken' port of Bad Fur Day.  I played it, it was bad.  I needed cheats just to beat the first, and now they've removed them?  Okay, forget this.

I did like DK64 though, I thought that was a good game.  Maybe people kept getting stuck on the part where you had to play the original Donkey Kong.  I even got the Soundtrack and lipsynced the DK Rap for my acting class in college.

[Aridas]

Turok was Acclaim.

[Saist]

The thing is, Rare used to be a kickass game developer.  They made the DK series, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Star Fox, tons of great games and series.  They just went to hell when they signed onto Microsoft.

eh, might as well finish driving this thread off topic

Rare didn't go to hell when they signed to Microsoft. Basically, all Microsoft bought was the name Rare and several of the IP items (Conker, Perfect Dark, Kameo)

The problem was that many of the RareWare developers had already moved on. The team behind GoldenEye, for example, had already moved onto Free Radical and were working on Time Splitters. Other development teams, like those behind Jet Force Gemini, Donky Kong, Diddy Kong, and Blast Corps had also moved onto third parties. Some went to teams like Naughty Dog, Insomniac, or joined Free Radical witht the GoldenEye team.

By the time Nintendo started with the Gamecube, around 2000-2001, Rare had already been effectively gutted. The only entire team left from the N64 years was working on Dinosaur Planet / Star Fox Adventures, and that was the development team headed by the Stamper Brothers, the founders of Rare. The development team behind Kameo: Elements of Power, never were able to get their titles up to the expectations the Stamper brothers had for the "normal" released titles. It was during this time that the Stamper Brothers announced their intention to retire. Star Fox: Adventures would be their last title, then they were gone.

That put Nintendo in a difficult position. While Rare had been a driving force behind the N64, there was only going to be one completed Rare game by the time the Stamper Brothers left. Kameo was in no condition to be a title. The result was that for the first 8 fiscal quarters of the life of the Gamecube, RareWare contributed nothing to Nintendo's bottom line, and looking ahead, wasn't going to be capable of producing content that they considered worthy of buying.

I was one of those that presumed that anybody who bought RareWare  had to be a flipping idiot. It would have been better to have bought the properties, and just dissolve the development team. That Microsoft purchased the properties, and the Kameo development team, was a shocking development, pun intended. And it showed. During the past... I want to say 3 years, Rare's most profitable content was Gameboy Advance titles, either remakes of SNES titles, or 3rd party developed content like the GBA Banjo title.

I for one, still hold, that Microsoft screwed up big time by letting the remaining RareWare developers handle titles like Conker and Perfect Dark Zero, and the average review rating for both I think bears that out.

* je.saist now contemplates changing the topic title to something else... it's been a few posts since the PS3 launch disaster was discussed...

[Damaris]

I wouldn't.  You'd just confuse everyone who was looking for the thread.

[Cvstos]

Tapewolf: As I said, right now any attempt by me to make a game would likely be one that's coded to be platform-agnostic with high-level coding.  Something simple.  That's a lot easier to port.

[Tapewolf]

Tapewolf: As I said, right now any attempt by me to make a game would likely be one that's coded to be platform-agnostic with high-level coding.  Something simple.  That's a lot easier to port.

Good - I wish more people would do that.  The Head over Heels remake was done using Allegro to abstract most of the system away - SDL is another good choice.  I don't know how much cleaning up the OSX and BeOS people did, but it was nearly a straight recompile for Linux by the time I got the source code.

[Paavo]

Paavo is the proud winner of a one day ban for violated Rule #1- No Racial Slurs!  Congratulations, Paavo!

Thanks! OT: what was the racial slur BTW? Just so I could avoid it in the future.

And no, I wasn't lesb*an enough to PM or "report" you, since I know how much a bitch it is to read all the billion whinings by some random forum users.

/end O' ot

[Damaris]

"Fag" was the winning entry.  Coupled with an earlier warning to behave.

And who was the second part directed to?  I'm not sure what you meant.

[Paavo]

  I'm not sure what you meant.

In short: I could've sent you a PM conserning my question, but since I know how irritating it sometimes gets to have ka-billion stupid user-whine PM's on an admin inbox, I deicided to distract this public thread even if that is not that kosher.

F*g is a race now? j/k I guess I didn't get you either. But if I did, plz explain, since I confuzzl'd now. 

Ah, nevermind. 

/end of OT period

[Damaris]

We lumped many degrading terms under racial slurs.  So conventionally, no, it is not a race, but for ease of reference, we lump all of it together.

However, I would prefer that you ask your questions here, rather than at other forums.  Makes things easier.