AuthorTopic: Wii U or 3DS?  (Read 4078 times)

Offline Tijjer

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Wii U or 3DS?

on: May 08, 2014, 11:56:29 am
So me and my friends are making a game for Steam but recently I contacted Nintendo and was able to get some information on where I would be able for us to buy a license and be able to develop and distribute our games on Nintendo systems.  My friends think its a good idea though were not quite so sure rather or not to once its on Steam to port it to Wii U or 3DS.  I like the use of the Wii U's gamepad but its currently of course not as popular while the 3DS is but I'm afraid of certain size restrictions (which I shouldn't I mean look at RE: Revelations)  ???.  Anyways what system do you think is better to port a rpg/jrpg styled game to?   ;D

Offline Crow

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Re: Wii U or 3DS?

Reply #1 on: May 08, 2014, 01:31:56 pm
(J)RPG would work on both systems, really. If you can, why not both?
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Offline rikfuzz

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Re: Wii U or 3DS?

Reply #2 on: May 08, 2014, 01:32:16 pm
As far as I know you get no payment at all from Nintendo until you hit a certain number of downloads (within a time-limit).  Digital downloads are up lately, but I think it's still a very lofty target for that platform. The eshop is still a pretty poor user experience. That coupled with the dev kit cost...  I really wouldn't invest in it unless I had an iron-tight sure winner or two ready to publish. 

IMO Steam is a ridiculously better investment of time/effort/money.  I would definitely get that done first, then maybe port to Nintendo if it did very well (even then, knowing it's probably largely an expensive advert for the steam version to pick up sales again, and let's be honest - a bit of a vanity thing). 

Nintendo might have changed their rules a bit lately, or at least by the time you're up and running on steam, so my advice is to revisit this question then! Certainly wouldn't make any design decisions based around a possible future console version though, just make the best product you can for Steam. 

Offline Carnivac

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Re: Wii U or 3DS?

Reply #3 on: May 08, 2014, 01:42:01 pm
PS3/4/Vita would be a good go as well particularly with Sony's increased support for indie developers (if you look at the PlayStation blog it's often got articles about upcoming indie games, and their recent support of Game Maker: Studio has veen very encouraging for those of us who use that software such as myself).  The appeal of Crossbuy where you only pay the price of one format and get the others included for free (so if you buy it on PS3, then you get the Vita and, if available, the PS4 version as well for no extra charge) is a big draw when owners of multiple PlayStation formats are considering their next game purchase.   I only have the PS3 out of that lot at moment but I still like that I'm having the Vita and PS4 versions attached to my account for when I do own those consoles. 
Also judging by comments on the PlayStation blog there's a lot of people who'd like more rpgs.   The PS3 and Vita certainly have good games of those genres (and they sell quite a lot of RPGs on those formats in Japan particularly) but there's always room for more (particularly 'retro' ones that resemble the SNES era it would seem going by some of the remarks).  I don't personally like RPG's all that much myself but I'm just saying what I've been seeing as a PlayStation gamer and thought I'd offer that bit of advice.  Nintendo may be your favourite and that's fine but you should check out what the other companies have to offer in addition.   Even more so with the reports of the Wii U struggling as it is.  At the end of the day if you want profit you need the game on the machine it'll get most exposure.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2014, 01:44:01 pm by Carnivac »
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Offline Tijjer

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Re: Wii U or 3DS?

Reply #4 on: May 08, 2014, 02:10:50 pm
PS3/4/Vita would be a good go as well particularly with Sony's increased support for indie developers (if you look at the PlayStation blog it's often got articles about upcoming indie games, and their recent support of Game Maker: Studio has veen very encouraging for those of us who use that software such as myself).  The appeal of Crossbuy where you only pay the price of one format and get the others included for free (so if you buy it on PS3, then you get the Vita and, if available, the PS4 version as well for no extra charge) is a big draw when owners of multiple PlayStation formats are considering their next game purchase.   I only have the PS3 out of that lot at moment but I still like that I'm having the Vita and PS4 versions attached to my account for when I do own those consoles. 
Also judging by comments on the PlayStation blog there's a lot of people who'd like more rpgs.   The PS3 and Vita certainly have good games of those genres (and they sell quite a lot of RPGs on those formats in Japan particularly) but there's always room for more (particularly 'retro' ones that resemble the SNES era it would seem going by some of the remarks).  I don't personally like RPG's all that much myself but I'm just saying what I've been seeing as a PlayStation gamer and thought I'd offer that bit of advice.  Nintendo may be your favourite and that's fine but you should check out what the other companies have to offer in addition.   Even more so with the reports of the Wii U struggling as it is.  At the end of the day if you want profit you need the game on the machine it'll get most exposure.

I'll see what Playstation has to offer!  While I'm sure we are not interested in profit but releasing a really fun game in homage to old styled games it would be nice to make a bit of a profit so we can make more of course! 

As far as I know you get no payment at all from Nintendo until you hit a certain number of downloads (within a time-limit).  Digital downloads are up lately, but I think it's still a very lofty target for that platform. The eshop is still a pretty poor user experience. That coupled with the dev kit cost...  I really wouldn't invest in it unless I had an iron-tight sure winner or two ready to publish. 

IMO Steam is a ridiculously better investment of time/effort/money.  I would definitely get that done first, then maybe port to Nintendo if it did very well (even then, knowing it's probably largely an expensive advert for the steam version to pick up sales again, and let's be honest - a bit of a vanity thing). 

Nintendo might have changed their rules a bit lately, or at least by the time you're up and running on steam, so my advice is to revisit this question then! Certainly wouldn't make any design decisions based around a possible future console version though, just make the best product you can for Steam. 


Where did you hear that?  Also what is the time limit exactly?  But yes we are focusing it on being on Steam and if its success is really well (which we are going to make sure it is by carefully crafting it) at the moment.  We will see about porting it to the nintendo systems depending on its success but at first we also can't help but wonder which system would be the best for it after steam.

 
(J)RPG would work on both systems, really. If you can, why not both?
Hmm I guess so!

Offline rikfuzz

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Re: Wii U or 3DS?

Reply #5 on: May 08, 2014, 04:21:12 pm
Where did you hear that?  Also what is the time limit exactly?  But yes we are focusing it on being on Steam and if its success is really well (which we are going to make sure it is by carefully crafting it) at the moment.  We will see about porting it to the nintendo systems depending on its success but at first we also can't help but wonder which system would be the best for it after steam.

AFAIK it's all just rumours as contracts are confidential but I heard something like 2,000 DLs within 2 years, but I imagine different studios negotiate different contracts. Dev kits are rumoured to be $5k.  Sales data for the platform is all secret, so really hard to know if this is really achievable outside of big names - I'm skeptical.

Purely speculation but I think Nintendo know they have to do something about their eShop's performance so exactly how achievable that is could theoretically change at any point if they improved it.

A friend has got a game on PS(P/V?) so I could ask him if he had a better experience with Sony, but it's tough to get actual numbers from anyone really. 

Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Wii U or 3DS?

Reply #6 on: May 08, 2014, 04:36:14 pm
I saw Ninentdo demoing this stuff at GDC:
https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com/

But I was way too busy to check it out.
I don't really know much about it.
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Offline Tijjer

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Re: Wii U or 3DS?

Reply #7 on: May 08, 2014, 07:18:14 pm
Where did you hear that?  Also what is the time limit exactly?  But yes we are focusing it on being on Steam and if its success is really well (which we are going to make sure it is by carefully crafting it) at the moment.  We will see about porting it to the nintendo systems depending on its success but at first we also can't help but wonder which system would be the best for it after steam.

AFAIK it's all just rumours as contracts are confidential but I heard something like 2,000 DLs within 2 years, but I imagine different studios negotiate different contracts. Dev kits are rumoured to be $5k.  Sales data for the platform is all secret, so really hard to know if this is really achievable outside of big names - I'm skeptical.

Purely speculation but I think Nintendo know they have to do something about their eShop's performance so exactly how achievable that is could theoretically change at any point if they improved it.

A friend has got a game on PS(P/V?) so I could ask him if he had a better experience with Sony, but it's tough to get actual numbers from anyone really. 

I don't think they would do that, that doesn't make since because if the devs don't make money then Nintendo won't get more games, so I doubt that rumor.  But go ahead I don't mind any answers and experiences.

I saw Ninentdo demoing this stuff at GDC:
https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com/

But I was way too busy to check it out.
I don't really know much about it.

That!  Yes that!  Well I don't really want to work with Unity, I mean sure it would speed up development processes but I would want to make it the way we want to make it.  So while working with Unity is a choice I would rather and same with my friends make our game the way we want it to be...plus I don't like working with C#  :P  And theres also there Net Framework but we know nothing of HTML 5 and while I'm interested in what they are doing with it I haven't seen enough of it rather we should give their framework a try.