Wii Independent Developer Program “in hiaitus”

Small, independent game development groups were attracted to Nintendo’s Wii because of its low-cost approach, not only saving money for the gaming consumer, but for the producer as well. But Ars Technica’s Opposable Thumbs reported that the Wii Independent Developer Program, which would have put a Wii development kit into the hands of indie devs for as low as US$ 2,000.00, is “on hiatus.”

The perceived reason is because the company is concentrating on getting dev kits to the big players first, before they can devote any resources to the program for indies. Opposable Thumbs cites the gripes of one indie group, Water Cooler Games. “I still have a lot of interest in developing for Wii at the studio, but the lack of dev kits combined with the lack of retail units makes me worry. Is Nintendo‘s story about mass-appeal just marketing rhetoric?”

Uh-oh. Ars was right to point to potential competition from Microsoft‘s XNA development platform for homebrewers – we even had a talk with one such bedroom dev – and even hinted at a potential mirror move from Sony. Water Cooler Games continued, “At the rate we’re going, independent games of any kind (on the Wii) won’t be a reality until 2008 at least, and we still don’t know how likely Nintendo is to license unusual games for the system.”

As much as drawing on the company’s storied past with third-party and indie developers is (at best) uncomfortable for us, we’d like to think that in diversity (of developers) there is strength for Nintendo.

Even a statement of reassurance from the company would be appreciated by the underdog community.

Small, independent game development groups were attracted to Nintendo’s Wii because of its low-cost approach, not only saving money for the gaming consumer, but for the producer as well. But Ars Technica’s Opposable Thumbs reported that the Wii Independent Developer Program, which would have put a Wii development kit into the hands of indie devs for as low as US$ 2,000.00, is “on hiatus.”

The perceived reason is because the company is concentrating on getting dev kits to the big players first, before they can devote any resources to the program for indies. Opposable Thumbs cites the gripes of one indie group, Water Cooler Games. “I still have a lot of interest in developing for Wii at the studio, but the lack of dev kits combined with the lack of retail units makes me worry. Is Nintendo‘s story about mass-appeal just marketing rhetoric?”

Uh-oh. Ars was right to point to potential competition from Microsoft‘s XNA development platform for homebrewers – we even had a talk with one such bedroom dev – and even hinted at a potential mirror move from Sony. Water Cooler Games continued, “At the rate we’re going, independent games of any kind (on the Wii) won’t be a reality until 2008 at least, and we still don’t know how likely Nintendo is to license unusual games for the system.”

As much as drawing on the company’s storied past with third-party and indie developers is (at best) uncomfortable for us, we’d like to think that in diversity (of developers) there is strength for Nintendo.

Even a statement of reassurance from the company would be appreciated by the underdog community.