Writing
Nintendindie - Published by N-Philes, Mar 8, 2006
Ex-gamers, new gamers, old gamers, and non-gamers: Nintendo is putting a lot of effort into getting all of them to play its products, but they should be spending equal energy getting developers to make games for these supposed masses to play. Of course, maybe they already are.
It was recently revealed that the software development kits for Nintendo's next-gen machine would cost a mere $2000, ten times less than that of even the PS2's kit. For a price less than 1,500 cups of coffee, just about anyone can purchase the rights and the means to make software for the Revolution. Of course, this isn't such a big concern for the super giants out there, but now smaller development companies, bored game geniuses, programming aficionados, and even rich kids with money to burn can all get into console development relatively painlessly. Many believe that this simple move by Nintendo can do wonders into bringing a lot of "new" (and perhaps "garbage") to the Revolution, but it's only really a first step.
Admittedly, I don't know a lot about the independent games scene, but I bet that Nintendo does (or can hire someone who does). Indie Games Festival, Indie Games Con, Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition... These are the places Nintendo should be. DigiPen gets some representation, but if anything, it's Microsoft who is there encouraging these little guys. Not that that's a bad thing... it's entirely possible, what with 2006 being "the year of the Revolution", that Nintendo will start to get into these spaces.
Once a game is created, people need to be able to play it. More often than not, this results in the need for a publisher, somebody to get the product out there. Online distribution is becoming a popular avenue for these individuals, groups, and companies to get people to play their games. Knowing nothing about Nintendo's proposed online software retro download Wi-Fi connection store, it's almost certainly probably possible to get Revolution-specific software distributed through this service.
But there's a limit to this. As we currently know, the Revolution comes equipped with a standard 512MB SD flash memory card. This is more than enough for Revolution game saves, NES, SNES, and some N64 games, but it makes it hard for the aforementioned rich kid to make a game that can fit somewhere in between all that. Sure, you can buy more cards, but that limits games to half a gig, maybe one full gig. I can't see anybody spending lots of money on a high-capacity SD card just to play one game. Of course, simpler games won't require that... but not everyone is out there to make Bejewelled Clone #214.
A peripheral hard drive may be a good solution, but that adds more cost to the consumer. Hardcore gamers might not care, but casual gamers and parents, people who don't want to pay $50-$60 for fun, might not want to spend money on an external hard drive, official or otherwise. Because such a hard drive isn't standard, these larger games wouldn't be accessible to everyone. Inaccessible games on the "all-access" gaming machine? Hoo boy. Not to mention that I'm sure some people might be concerned about the bandwidth to download such large files.
To throw a random point in here to make my next statement stronger, consider that one of the complaints Nintendo gamers have with the company is that they don't do enough to promote third party games on their systems. Because many people buy Nintendo consoles solely for Nintendo content, there's a good chance that, as a potential market, they'll simply pass up smaller indie games in order to purchase Yoshi's Cookie, Super Metroid and 1080°.
So, how can Nintendo help to promote games from indie and newbie developers without limiting them or straining their online distribution to the max?
Drumroll, please...
Nintendo could create a game label that publishes indie games for the Revolution. Allowing developers to make Revolution games, using as much or as little space to store them as they need, and promoting them on some sort of grassy label is a great way to solve this problem. The game discs would be produced as needed (none of that minimum "you need to make at least 10,000 copies" crap that the N64 used), and sold through 1) Nintendo Revolution Online store, linked to MyNintendo addresses, 2) Nintendo World Store, 3) Online stores, and if it is desired or popular enough, 4) Retail. Electroplankton is thriving on this system, without hurting Nintendo's pocket.
The trade off here is that it costs materials and shipping in order to get the product to people, but it's far less risky than for Nintendo to publish the titles as a full-fledged "Nintendo" venture like Eternal Darkness or Geist were (which of course were titles that Nintendo poured a lot of resources into, something these indie games wouldn't benefit from). It gives the developers more breathing room, and it gives them an outlet if ever they have difficulty finding a publisher.
Perrin Kaplan, the illustrious VP of marketing and corporate affairs at NOA recently said, "Nintendo has always been the highest risk-taker of all the companies. We have always chosen to go into new terrain without knowing what the end is going to be." Pokémon, one of, if not the highest grossing game franchise of all time, was created by a small, relatively unknown developer until Nintendo picked it up and molded it. Of course, Nintendo will always adding magical touches to the Geists and Chibi Robos out there, but at least all the other games could make it to people's living rooms. After all, both Pokémon and Animal Crossing almost didn't make it outside of Japan...
Nintendo has taken the first step to invite support to the Revolution: development is cheap with the low SDK price and development is easy because the hardware is very similar to that of the GameCube. Once the word gets out there, developers of all shapes and sizes might look into using the Revolution to get their big ideas out there. In order to continue its promise of simple development, Nintendo has to make publishing avenues equally simple and accessible to the developers who now have access to the console gaming industry. Whether this is accomplished online, through a new publishing label, or by picking up more games themselves, Nintendo has the potential to have the largest and most diverse library of games available.
And that, my friends, after ten years of rocky third party support, will make you say, "wow".