Lately Nintendo has been turning around its reputation for being unfriendly to indie developers, with solid eShop releases from established developers like Frozenbyte and Broken Rules. However, it looks like Nintendo may be opening up development on the Wii U to “garage developers” who may not have official office space. This is great news for many sole developers, or developers who work solely from home (Edmund McMillen comes to mind).
The policy for Nintendo development has always been that in order to receive a development kit, a developer must have a dedicated business place. For many small time developers, offices just aren’t an option. So what’s changing? According to a tweet from Dan Adelman, who is part of business development at Nintendo, a whole lot.
By shying away from the dedicated space policy, Nintendo opens itself to the world of independent developers that go beyond studios. TIGSource has always been a hive of creativity for indie development and those who work out of offices on the site are definitely in the minority. Of course, a tweet is certainly not an official announcement, but we’re hoping that Nintendo will realize that so many great games have been one or two people productions.
Do you think this is a good move for Nintendo?
