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Revolution- Opening the door to low budget developers?

O

olimario

Banned
I haven't seen it mentioned here, but I'm sure it has been.
With the Revolution supporting NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube titles will this be a machine to which low budget devs flock?

A game like alien hominid can't be very demanding. Developers like that could theoretically develop it on N64 hardware and offer it for download to the revolution for a small price. If successful, they would have money to create larger budget titles and possibly move to the GC medium or the Revolution medium.

All in theory, of course, but it seems like such an awesome system for developers who can't make the financial leap into next gen.
 
olimario said:
I haven't seen it mentioned here, but I'm sure it has been.
With the Revolution supporting NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube titles will this be a machine to which low budget devs flock?

A game like alien hominid can't be very demanding. Developers like that could theoretically develop it on N64 hardware and offer it for download to the revolution for a small price. If successful, they would have money to create larger budget titles and possibly move to the GC medium or the Revolution medium.

All in theory, of course, but it seems like such an awesome system for developers who can't make the financial leap into next gen.
Click to expand...

The platform is called the Personal Computer. Cheers.
 
nintendo really needs to embrace the little guys make revolution the art house theatre of gaming consoles
 
But going through Nintendo there could be some kind of quality check on software being distributed through their online service. Delivering the very best and letting the users decide which they enjoy most.

I see the Revolution being a great thing for devs. Hell, handheld devs could do simple ports from GBA to SNES or N64 and make some money on the side.
 
sp0rsk said:
nintendo really needs to embrace the little guys make revolution the art house theatre of gaming consoles
Click to expand...

I wish that would happen. They are not good at reaching out and embracing outside developers, though. No matter how much sense that scenario would make.
 
Nintendo will always be their own worst enemy.

No matter how cheap they make it for publishers to develop for their system, most of the games will be completely ignored. Gamers buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games.
 
I don't get it. A small developer is still a small developer with limited resources. They'd probably put the same kind of money in a PS3 or 360 game as they would a Revolution game. Only, lets face it, PS3 and 360 will likely have higher install numbers and will yield a higher profit.

If MS is providing all kinds of programming libraries and support to developers, I don't see why a small developer couldn't make a "smaller" game that has "HD" capabilities.

The way things are going, I think the distribution of development will remain relatively unchanged, and it anything, a bit worse for wear in the case of Nintendo.


Who knows. Everyone is blowing smoke up our asses.
 
Sapienshomo said:
I don't get it. A small developer is still a small developer with limited resources. They'd probably put the same kind of money in a PS3 or 360 game as they would a Revolution game. Only, lets face it, PS3 and 360 will likely have higher install numbers and will yield a higher profit.

If MS is providing all kinds of programming libraries and support to developers, I don't see why a small developer couldn't make a "smaller" game that has "HD" capabilities.

The way things are going, I think the distribution of development will remain relatively unchanged, and it anything, a bit worse for wear in the case of Nintendo.


Who knows. Everyone is blowing smoke up our asses.
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Whif!
Misses the point
 
olimario said:
But going through Nintendo there could be some kind of quality check on software being distributed through their online service.
Click to expand...

542019.jpg
 
Well, I certainly hope it becomes a sort of outlet for super low budget developers for consoles. I welcome that prospect with open arms.
 
I hope the Revolution keeps 2d gaming alive, and I hope that developers(even Nintendo) put out new software to be downloaded along with old NES, and SNES games.
 
I doubt the BC is what Nintendo is banking on to get small developers on board. I think the fact that their machine will have an evolved version of the GC API is what's more important in that regard.

What I do hope that happens with the BC is that Nintendo uses the oppurtunity to release stuff that hasn't seen are shores or even the light of day, like the OOT Master Quest. This is fine oppurtunity to put out stuff from the 64 DD, or games built for their old satellite system, or even translations of old stuff like previous Fire Emblems or the Famicom Wars games.
 
Man, I would like the McDickie guy to make some shit on these consoles. I have more fun from his wrestling game than I do the AKI ones. Shit graphics, but gameplay is great.
 
The funny and yet thoughtless thing about Nintendo is that when people discuss them, they always get the benefit of the fresh start :lol It's history I guess, I want them to do the right, smart and neat things too...but they rarely do.
 
The Abominable Snowman said:
I swear XBLArcade was mostly homebrew crap like Bejewled.
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That's pretty much all you can do with a download-only model. If you go above $200,000 or so with your development budget, it becomes extremely difficult to make your money back.
 
XBLArcade, the screen they showed at E3 press conf. Consisted of all the games you can currently play on MSN 7.0 -- minus wheel of fortune and the ones you pay for.

woo! Minesweeper 360! OMG TURBO GRAFX!!!1

edit: on a serious note though, Nintendo's Tom Harlin confirmed that the nintendo download service is available to 3rd parties, so I could see 'download only' smaller games, from low-budget devs.
 
The Abominable Snowman said:
I swear XBLArcade was mostly homebrew crap like Bejewled.
Click to expand...

was, doesn't mean it has to be in the future.

av_ben_skip.gif

woo! Minesweeper 360! OMG TURBO GRAFX!!!1

I love it when avatars go so well with the accompanying text.
 
I would be quite fine with Nintendo using this download service for low cost third party development- in fact, I would think it would be pretty darn cool.

Nintendo's already getting a bit of an "art house dev" type of thing going with their DS, and being able to grow this and expand it using this is a good idea.

We should all write them to suggest it.
 
olimario said:
I haven't seen it mentioned here, but I'm sure it has been.
With the Revolution supporting NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube titles will this be a machine to which low budget devs flock?

A game like alien hominid can't be very demanding. Developers like that could theoretically develop it on N64 hardware and offer it for download to the revolution for a small price. If successful, they would have money to create larger budget titles and possibly move to the GC medium or the Revolution medium.

All in theory, of course, but it seems like such an awesome system for developers who can't make the financial leap into next gen.
Click to expand...

+ "Shovelware."

.... sounds like early Playstation 1.
 
Actually I really like this idea, and it's probably the best thing Revolution has going for it right now.

There are a ton of fantastic low-budget games this generation. Take for instance Katamari Damacy. It's quirky title that wasn't assured to sell much, but Namco could afford to give it a small budget and see how it turns out. On PS3/Xbox360 you can't have empty non-detailed environments, so in order to make a quirky game with no guaruntee to sell Namco would have to give a sizeable budget to the team for making huge detailed environments filled with hi polygon models and good physics. It's at this point where a big company like Namco might think "hmm, why bother taking the chance and losing a sizable sum of money. Let's just make sequel #300 which will sell decently for sure".

Now imagine if Revolution is pretty much sticking with the graphics of modern consoles and before say Half-life 2/DOOM3 PC games. To make games on these systems you can just use the low-polygon models and textures that you're currently using. You can stick with the current cheap physics model and probably some cheap renderware if you wanted. Imagine if the main difference is just going to be modern looking games but all hitting 60fps no problem, more things on screen, really good free online, and some bizarre input thing. If Namco can make a quirky off beat game in 2008 for the same price they spent to develop Katamari, well there's a lot better chance they will give it a shot compared to if the costs were 2-5x more for making it 'next-gen' looking on PS3/Xbox360.

If something like that worked out, you'd see people like Kojima making Metal Gear games on the PS3 while making quirky original games like Boktai on Revolution. You'd see a lot more original non-sequel games and much more innovation and risk taking.

This is all speculative so who knows, but if Revolution becomes a cheap alternative for risk taking games, the system will fill a niche for hardcore gamers...a very very awesome niche.
 
Monk said:
But those have like no penetration whatsoever these days. PC gaming is dying despite my best efforts. :(
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The downloadable games area is very lucrative and is growing very quickly. Mobile (handset) games even more so. Downloadable/mobile games are currently THE place to be if you're an independent developer looking to make decent money and make a name for yourself. It's just a difficerent world that people here are largely oblivious to.
 
Nintendo should really dedicate a small team to create some experimental games for the download service. They don't have to be particulary complex or expansive, I'm thinking more like the first NES games that consisted of only a single screen and a couple of level variations. If any of these becomes very popular they could allow it to expand into a full fledged game. A nice way to allow new talents in the company to show their visions with a minimal budget.
 
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