[crcapps]

Has anyone here ever tried to develop for the Wii?

This new WiiWare thing seems to be a step towards the Wii being small-developer friendly.
However, I found the form on Nintendo's corporate site to request information about licensing and such, but the language there is still established-developer centric.

What gives?

[jjsaw5]

I'm not really sure, but this is something you might want to try and contact Nintendo about. See if you can get any information from them.


If you do, please make sure you let us know what you find out.

[Tom9729]

If you want to develop for the Wii, you either have to pay the big bucks for an SDK, or go to homebrew.

There's a reason homebrew exists. Amateur developers can't afford what Nintendo is asking.

There's an app called the Homebrew Channel which lets the Wii download and run unsigned elf binaries over the network. That essentailly means you can write and run whatever you want on the Wii.

[crcapps]

I'm more worried about them flat out saying "no" than the money they would be asking.

Tom9729, on 27 May, 2008 - 11:07 AM, said:

If you want to develop for the Wii, you either have to pay the big bucks for an SDK, or go to homebrew.

There's a reason homebrew exists. Amateur developers can't afford what Nintendo is asking.

There's an app called the Homebrew Channel which lets the Wii download and run unsigned elf binaries over the network. That essentailly means you can write and run whatever you want on the Wii.

[Tom9729]

If you can pay up, I doubt they would care.

[MorphiusFaydal]

crcapps, on 27 May, 2008 - 01:39 PM, said:

I'm more worried about them flat out saying "no" than the money they would be asking.

Tom9729, on 27 May, 2008 - 11:07 AM, said:

If you want to develop for the Wii, you either have to pay the big bucks for an SDK, or go to homebrew.

There's a reason homebrew exists. Amateur developers can't afford what Nintendo is asking.

There's an app called the Homebrew Channel which lets the Wii download and run unsigned elf binaries over the network. That essentailly means you can write and run whatever you want on the Wii.

From what I've been able to discover, if you haven't published a game of some sort on some platform, Nintendo is going to just flat out tell you to get lost if you ask for an SDK.

[crcapps]

That's exactly what the language on their website sounded like it was hinting at.

I was just wondering if anything might be changing since this direct download thing came around-- the spin on it made it sound like every third-tier small-house developer and shareware author on the planet could be writing Wii games here on out, then, after a little poking around on their corporate site, it sounded like a little harsher of a climate.

MorphiusFaydal, on 28 May, 2008 - 03:12 AM, said:

crcapps, on 27 May, 2008 - 01:39 PM, said:

I'm more worried about them flat out saying "no" than the money they would be asking.

Tom9729, on 27 May, 2008 - 11:07 AM, said:

If you want to develop for the Wii, you either have to pay the big bucks for an SDK, or go to homebrew.

There's a reason homebrew exists. Amateur developers can't afford what Nintendo is asking.

There's an app called the Homebrew Channel which lets the Wii download and run unsigned elf binaries over the network. That essentailly means you can write and run whatever you want on the Wii.

From what I've been able to discover, if you haven't published a game of some sort on some platform, Nintendo is going to just flat out tell you to get lost if you ask for an SDK.

This post has been edited by crcapps: 28 May 2008 - 05:37 AM

[no2pencil]

I haven't gone through it, but here is where Nintendo keeps the requirements to become a licensed developer or developer-publisher. Executive summary:

1. You SHOULD have a working prototype of your product on another platform. Not only does this prove to Nintendo that your team is competent, but it also gives you something to fall back on should Nintendo reject your application.
2. You MUST have leased office space separate from any residence. As far as I can tell, the rationale is that it's easier to secure an office that is used for one purpose than a home that is used for every purpose.
3. You MUST get your games rated M or lower by the ESRB or by the corresponding rating board in each market where you plan to release your game. You SHOULD avoid the M rating (or foreign counterparts) for two reasons: customers who prefer the games typical of an M rating tend to prefer Sony and Microsoft platforms, and some rating boards completely "refuse classification" to (that is, ban) games with content typical of the M rating.

If you can make a game, but can't meet the requirements to have Nintendo develop it, then you can always find a company whom is Nintendo certified developer, & pay them to release your game. But they will have the same content requirements. They will however, be a safety net for you, as far as they'll have a customer service department, & all of the paper work ability.

[MorphiusFaydal]

crcapps, on 28 May, 2008 - 07:35 AM, said:

That's exactly what the language on their website sounded like it was hinting at.

I was just wondering if anything might be changing since this direct download thing came around-- the spin on it made it sound like every third-tier small-house developer and shareware author on the planet could be writing Wii games here on out, then, after a little poking around on their corporate site, it sounded like a little harsher of a climate.
From what I've been able to discover, if you haven't published a game of some sort on some platform, Nintendo is going to just flat out tell you to get lost if you ask for an SDK.

I don't think the Official SDK requirements are going to be indicative of how the Homebrew stuff will be... Look at Microsoft XNA and the XBox 360 SDK... The SDK is sold only to "real" developers, and XNA is available to anyone who's willing to pay USD99 to play their games on the 360.

I think the Wii Homebrew system is going to be similar to how XNA works for the 360.

Now we just need something similar for the PS3... And I mean something in the official software, not building Linux software that runs on PS3/Linux.

[no2pencil]

My understanding of the XNA is that it's basically an emulator, & your only writing code for the emulator & not really for the Xbox. That's garbage, but I need to remember from a business perspecitive it accomplishes two things.

1.) For a small fee, it opens up new clients to the homebrew market.
2.) *the most important* it provides a layer of protection against their hardware. The last thing a console manufacture wants is the general public to have full access to the system. They must protect intellectual property first.

[KYA]

I don't think using XNA really does anyone a favor. Unless you just wanna do it for fun. It's like suing Gamemaker--you aren't really programming and that is where my interest wanes.

[MorphiusFaydal]

It's not writing it for an emulator... It *is* running on the .NET Virtual Machine, so that may be where that came from.

And how is it like Gamemaker? You still have to do it all yourself, XNA really just provides a bunch of commonly used classes and easier hardware access.

[crcapps]

Yeah, XNA is really just a .NET wrapper for DirectX to keep the casual developer from having to learn the ins and outs of DirectX's drawing and input routines, for the most part. It's just a bunch of libraries that make calls to other libraries.

[Trogdor]

A friend of mine is using some open java libraries to interact with the bluetooth controller directly. An interesting piece of hardware!
But that is not what you want to do, right?

[mocker]

KYA, on 29 May, 2008 - 03:22 AM, said:

I don't think using XNA really does anyone a favor. Unless you just wanna do it for fun. It's like suing Gamemaker--you aren't really programming and that is where my interest wanes.

lol whut? It provides a useful framework.. it is nothing like Gamemaker . That's like saying Allegro, Clanlib or any number of other game libraries is the same as using a wysiwg editor to make a game; it's utterly ridiculous . You are still programming in C# .
It provides a much easier entry point for homebrew/small game developers, which is exactly what it is meant for. For developers who want to make large games, they should be getting the 'real' license anyways. Have fun rewriting every single library whenever you write a software, because anything else isn't "really programming"...

As for the Wii SDK, it'll be nice if they get to something approaching XNA. There could be some great homebrew games with it