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Devs can set price and sales on Wii U's eShop

K

KillerTravis

Banned
An interview between IGN and Frozenbyte reveals new details about how Nintendo is handling the eShop.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/18/nintendos-steams-up-the-wii-u-eshop

"We started working with the Wii U back in March, right after Nintendo contacted us for the first time," said Mikael Haveri, a marketing manager at Frozenbyte. "We had the port of Trine 2 working in about two days and then after that it was just about getting the game to look nicer and to implement the touch screen related features."
Click to expand...

"That's what we love about the new eShop," said Haveri. "We have the power to price our products as we please, with just some basic guidelines from the big guys. The step to this is purely from Nintendos's side and they clearly see that [their] previous installments have not been up to par. We can set our own pricing and actually continuing on that by setting our own sales whenever we want. It is very close to what Apple and Steam are doing at the moment, and very indie friendly."
Click to expand...

"They have pushed away all of the old methods that have been established before," Haveri told me. "Simply put they've told us that there are no basic payments for each patch (which were pretty high on most platforms) and that we can update our game almost as much as we want. For indie developers this is huge."
Click to expand...

More at the link.
 
E

Erethian

Member
The no fee for patches is honestly a bigger deal, I feel. Had a feeling Nintendo was going that way considering all the free updates 3DS eShop games seem to get, but it's great to see them doing it. Hopefully Sony and Microsoft follow suit.
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Last time this same news was posted some people on here insisted it wasn't true.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
BY2K said:
There's no fee on DLC and patches, too.
Click to expand...

This is also very nice news, if Nintendo can really nail getting "up and coming" developers it may have the chance to really dominate this gen, at least in the DD department.

This is actually mind blowing good news... Especially since it doesn't look like Nintendo wants to compete in the AAA market again this gen.

(edit)So... Ouya's doomed?
 
B

Bending_Unit_22

Member
I like the idea of sales, but will they be advertised? Or will I have to search games to find them. That's my only issue with what's been said (and of course much much better than Nintendo has done in the past so great either way).

I see a lot of great that patches and DLC won't cost money comments, I am interested in why that is. Other than the obvious less expense = good. Is there a reason that indies and smaller publishers attach such concern to patch and DLC costs?
 
P

PetrCobra

Member
If the eShop will be anything like Steam in this regard I'm going all digital this coming generation. Buying lots of games when they are are on crazy sale knowing that I'll never get to playing them in the next five years or so. Woo hooo!
 
E

Erethian

Member
Bending_Unit_22 said:
I like the idea of sales, but will they be advertised? Or will I have to search games to find them. That's my only issue with what's been said (and of course much much better than Nintendo has done in the past so great either way).
Click to expand...

The eShop has a big splash page, so they might be advertised there.

Will be interesting to see how the design turns out considering that some of the people from the original XBLA team are meant to be working on it.

Edit: Also I wouldn't be surprised if there is something for devs in Miiverse with having their own communities where they can release information about their game(s).
 
M

Mr. Fix

Member
They have pushed away all of the old methods that have been established before," Haveri told me. "Simply put they've told us that there are no basic payments for each patch (which were pretty high on most platforms) and that we can update our game almost as much as we want. For indie developers this is huge.
Click to expand...

Nice!
 
J

JDSN

Banned
"They have pushed away all of the old methods that have been established before," Haveri told me. "Simply put they've told us that there are no basic payments for each patch (which were pretty high on most platforms) and that we can update our game almost as much as we want. For indie developers this is huge."
Click to expand...

Great news, glad that Nintendo told that EA to fuck off about their Origin idea. Someone needs to edit the thread title.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Flexible pricing and Nintendo only taking a small cut on digital sales are both pleasant surprises.

No certification fee on patches or DLC? That's a GIGATON.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
This is also very well TIMED news... It's no accident that this information was released now. Nintendo wants to court Indie devs hardcore and what better time to say "Welcome to your new home!" then right at launch.
 
K

ksamedi

Member
Great to see Nintendo supporting indies. These are usually the best source for new promising IP's. And the Wii U is giving indie devs a lot to work with in terms of creativeness.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
PetrCobra said:
If the eShop will be anything like Steam in this regard I'm going all digital this coming generation. Buying lots of games when they are are on crazy sale knowing that I'll never get to playing them in the next five years or so. Woo hooo!
Click to expand...

I wouldn't expect sales as frequent as Steam has them. Valve actively promotes the system they have and as far as I know, they're the ones who reach out to publishers to put their games on sale. I don't see Nintendo doing this. Perhaps if a developer does decide to put their game on sale on one platform they can now easily apply the same sale to eShop.
 
K

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
This is kinda effin' important. Indie devs have gotten screwed royally by Sony and MS' digital policies. The guys over at Farsight must be in tears due to how much they're jacked around trying to update The Pinball Arcade, for instance.

More, I somehow can't see Microsoft really relenting that much on their expensive and unfriendly policies and process moving forward. There's been no movement on that front that I am aware of. Though I wonder if they might be forced to due to competition from Nintendo in the realm of digital stuff.
 
K

KirbYuuYuu

Member
That really is a surprise. Of course, for the time being, there's still the PS360 to deal with, so free certifications and whatnot probably won't beat out a massive userbase. That's scenario B at least. Which I'm hoping it doesn't stop DD titles from getting a release.
 
N

NFreak

Member
Sandfox said:
Microsoft apparently charges an insane amount to patch games to where its not worth it unless its selling extremely well.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's supposedly thousands of dollars. I believe Phil Fish said it could be anywhere in between 10,000 and 40,000 dollars.
 
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