∞ Nintendo to 'hobbyist' devs: No thanks

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Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime is giving the shrug off to part-time developers – the bread and butter of Apple’s vast App Store and a driving force behind Google’s Android Market. He dismisses them as “hobbyists” and says they have no place in the Nintendo ecosystem.

“Where we’ve drawn the line is we are not looking to do business today with the garage developer. In our view, that’s not a business we want to pursue.”

An interesting juxtaposition to the heat and light of the recent Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, plainly on mobile – and not Nintendo’s version of mobile. That’s a very large chunk of software talent that Nintendo is turning its back on.

That speaks volumes about Nintendo’s lack of preparedness to expand their business. Reminds me of Sony getting spanked by the iPod and the iTunes Store.

Nintendo draws line between “indie devs” and “hobbyists” [Gamesindustry.biz]



  • Steven Fisher

    Ouch. I hope Nintendo gets a clue somewhere. It seems to me that most of the clever iOS titles have come from hobbyists, and Nintendo could use more clever titles.

  • Anonymous

    Ouch, indeed. This is very strange behavior for a mature company. Nintendo’s apparent arrogance seems to me to be some sort of nervous “squirming” over not knowing what the hell to do about Apple’s “intrusion.”

    It’s like being snubbed by the popular kids at a school dance when they realize all they’ve got is popularity next to some outsider with obvious talent. So it’s a feeble and desperate “put-down” in hopes that the kid will be scared off.

    • Steven Fisher

      My guess is that they’re looking at all the effort needed to expand their current techniques of developer support tenfold (or more) to include hobbyists and saying “Meh, it’s all too much effort, and we’ll lose a bunch of money on it.”

      Don’t forget, this is a company that’s charging the pro developers, what, $5,000? Going from that to hobbyists is a huge step.

  • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

    More protectionist arrogance. Unless they’re just making public statements to placate their primary developer partners.

  • Anonymous

    They’re so used to being on top that they have a hard time getting just how much in trouble they are. It’s kind of sad in a way. But then that’s the problem with so many people these days.

  • http://twitter.com/torkelh Torkel

    The last Nintendo system that had an amazing 3rd-party library was the SNES. All the following generations of consoles have succeeded almost solely on their (excellent) 1st-party titles.

  • Anonymous

    Nintendo has always been shortsighted. No WPA protocols in the Nintendo DS. No bluray disk in the Wii. No DVD playback on the Wii. No ethernet on the Wii. As a consumer, I don’t think I can support them anymore. They simply haven’t advanced as much as their competitors.

    • Anonymous

      Not a Nintendo apologist, but…Nintendo has a different orientation than Sony and MS: they insist on making money on their hardware. That’s why the Wii didn’t have Blu-ray or >480p or HDMI (it does have 802.11g wireless Ethernet), because that extra H/W would prevent them from hitting their price point, which was much cheaper than the competition. Nintendo decided with the Wii that they couldn’t compete in the hardcore gamer arena, so instead they opened up a whole ‘nother market. Profit-wise, it’s hard to argue with their decision, just like the decisions that Apple makes to focus on the profitable segment of the PC market.

      That said, I refuse to opine on the future of the videogame console, especially since I’m NOT a hardcore gamer – I like my Wii for a handful of games, and have no desire to get a PS3 or Xbox360. I do think that Nintendo is making a mistake in not having a “hobbyist” path to game production. They already have the perfect vehicle for distribution with the WiiWare channel. They could still curate it just like they do with third-party titles now to ensure a certain quality standard. And they could limit tech support to online existing docs only. Maybe it’s the H/W cost; I don’t know if they have a pure S/W emulator or not…

      • Anonymous

        We have a Wii as well. It sits unused while kids play on their iPods and 5+ year old DSes (not even the DSi model). The Wii is probably the last console that I buy from Nintendo unless their next game is a more centralized part of the home entertainment system. If it doesn’t have Bluray playback at a minimum than it will not be a welcome part in the room. The current Wii doesn’t have DVD playback because Nintendo didn’t want to pay 60 cents per unit to license the technology. They could have sold the option on the Wii Store for $5.00 and people would have bought it instead of having to deal with a $39.00 DVD player as well. An ethernet connection would have added a dollar or two to the cost of the unit. So it sells for $200 instead of $199. The benefit would have been tremendous. Can’t even use our Wii for Netflix because the movies stutter and pause constantly over WiFi on the device. Direct Ethernet would solve the problem. They don’t do that on my iPad though.

        I do feel that I should have bought and XBOX 360 or a Playstation 3. I feel ripped off by the Wii even though it cost less. I say this as someone who has owned every Nintendo console released to date and spent thousands on their games.

  • Anonymous

    We have a Wii as well. It sits unused while kids play on their iPods and 5+ year old DSes (not even the DSi model). The Wii is probably the last console that I buy from Nintendo unless their next game is a more centralized part of the home entertainment system. If it doesn’t have Bluray playback at a minimum than it will not be a welcome part in the room. The current Wii doesn’t have DVD playback because Nintendo didn’t want to pay 60 cents per unit to license the technology. They could have sold the option on the Wii Store for $5.00 and people would have bought it instead of having to deal with a $39.00 DVD player as well. An ethernet connection would have added a dollar or two to the cost of the unit. So it sells for $200 instead of $199. The benefit would have been tremendous. Can’t even use our Wii for Netflix because the movies stutter and pause constantly over WiFi on the device. Direct Ethernet would solve the problem. They don’t do that on my iPad though.

    I do feel that I should have bought and XBOX 360 or a Playstation 3. I feel ripped off by the Wii even though it cost less.