Developing for Nintendo Wii

[Mike D Smith]

The Wii looks awesome.

Is there any way for an indie to make a game for the Wii as an indie? How about for the GameCube, or PS2?

Microsoft has opened the doors a little bit with Xbox 360 arcade, but what have the other companies done?

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Nintendo made an offhand statement near the Rev's original announcement saying it would be possible for 'garage developers' to make products (presumably for their online service), but they haven't followed that up in any meaningful way yet. I believe there was also a statement by Nintendo of dirt-cheap dev kits.

You can do a search here to find more info about this stuff in our previous posts.

[pmav]

Hi, I think the following quote from the official Wii site answers your question:

"Virtual Console: Wii will have downloadable access to 20 years of fan-favorite titles originally released for Nintendo 64,
.....
It also will be home to new games conceived by indie developers whose creativity is larger than their budgets."

source: http://wii.nintendo.com/hardware.html

What remains to be seen is how selective they will be with the games. Historically Nintendo has very high quality standards.

[Bachus]

http://www.warioworld.com/ is Nintendo's developer site. They don't have any Wii licensing info up yet though. Generally you need to be an established developer to even get your foot in the door.

[TimS]

Word on the street (reliable sources) is that the devkits are in short supply and high demand at the moment, so pretty much only Nintendo's trusted development partners are getting 'em. When I asked what the timetable looked like for remedying the situation I was told something along the lines of "If you can establish that your team has developed in the past, apply at the end of the summer -- there will be more made by then."

If you have a team without much experience, I recommend hiring someone with experience in the "consultant to help us build a relationship with Nintendo" role for a while... ;)