Nintendo supporting “homebrew”?
Published by dasme 2 years, 5 months ago in News, Spotlight.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata recently said that “The controller lets game developers create new kinds of gaming experiences, ones that enhance the experience for hard-core gamers while making video games more accessible and less intimidating to novices. The new forms of innovative software that can be created by any size developer will be made available for download via Revolution’s Virtual Console service.”
Could this be Nintendo’s answer to Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade? The way I interpret this is that Nintendo is going to allow home-based developers to make their own games (commonly reffered to as homebrew) and distribute them via Nintendo’s virtual console service. This could be what pushes Nintendo to the top, if they market it right. Only time will tell, but stay tuned for more information as it develops.
9 Responses to “Nintendo supporting “homebrew”?”
- 1 Pingback on Jun 2nd, 2006 at 6:33 am
WooW would be so cool, but would it be free? Imagine that you can download it for free fun little games every day! And maybe we will see new talent working for nintendo after a few years!
Sorry dude, your interpretation couldn’t be more off. What he’s implying is that regular people will not be intimidated by the Wii, because of it’s ease of use, and interaction. Games are going to be instinctive, and (possibly) have lower complexity levels, due to the fact there are less buttons, and more intuitive controls. He’s still leaving this task in the hands of professional coders, however. The idea of opening up consoles (which developers pay money to have licenses to develop on), to homebrewer’s is not much of a reality at the moment (for any of the companies). It is a bummer, but in my opinion, its kinda nice to have the homebrew community as it is right now anyways. The nintendo homebrew scene is strong, and I wouldnt expect it to slow down after wii’s release. I can tell you, I for one am anxious for df, and the others to crack that s.o.b… and let me get codeing.. (though its not gonna be easy, I have no doubt they’re will be a way to run something on it). Its quite the interesting platform, I already have tons of ideas for the controller, and cant wait to implement them….
but Wii want a star wars game for sure, multiplayer Light saber battles… I know I’m gonna tape my wii controller to the end of a broomsticks and swing that bad boy around like the star wars kid… its gonna be awesome!!
“The new forms of innovative software that can be created by any size developer”
Any size developer would suggest that anyone can make a game, and then distribute it via the virtual console.
The games will still likely have to go through Nintendo’s Quality Assurance just like Live Arcade games have to go through Microsofts. Which will probally mean the average hobbyist wont haev a game up there, but indie developers (like myself) will hopefully be able to get games up there. Hell, I’ve wanted to make a game for Nintendo since Mario Bros.
Exactly Sebastien. That was along the lines of what I was thinking. Just curious, do you have any refferences to your work that you could show us?
Actually, the virtual console is also the vehicle in which Nintendo will offer the entire catalogue of Nintendo games thru the ages, from NES to N64, as well as games from the Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx.
From the Official Wii website:
“Virtual Console: Wii will have downloadable access…It also will be home to new games conceived by indie developers whose creativity is larger than their budgets.”
Freaking sweet. This coupled with the low price and the badass controller is gonna make me buy it. Seriously though, if they can pull this off well and make it managable, the wii will be either second place or first in the next-gen race. I say second because there are other factors we don’t know about, will this cost something? Will it be easy to use? Will it just plain work? We need to answer these questions before saying anything.