Nintendo has made concerted efforts to reach out to indie game developers- that it consciously spurned in the Wii era- with the 3DS and Wii U, and it has begun to show, with the Wii U getting some rather good indie game support. Nintendo itself seems to be trumpeting all that indie game support, especially in the absence of any other good news for the troubled home console right now.
“Historically, Nintendo has seemed kind of hard to approach, kind of like there’s a closed system where if a developer already knows somebody at Nintendo or has some kind of ‘in’ they’re in, but otherwise there’s no way to interface with the company,” Nintendo of America business development manager Dan Adelman said while speaking to Joystiq.
“I think we’re putting a lot of effort into changing that and making ourselves more accessible, so I really want to make sure that people realise that it’s actually pretty easy now – and we’re trying to make it easier – to work with us and release games on our systems.”
Speaking about the new revised policies for indie games on Wii U- a far cry from the draconian policies enacted by Nintendo in the Wii era- Adelman said: “Our primary consideration is an ability to make a game. You don’t have to have a record of published titles, or have to have worked at a large company in the past. If you’re actively working on a game, that should be sufficient.”
Hopefully, the gamble on indie games pays off and keeps the Wii U afloat while Nintendo works on some of its in house larger games.