Over on Gamasutra, there’s an interesting article about the developer Beamdog, and their trials and tribulations with WiiWare. It’s worth the quick read, but I’ll drop the salient points here for you:
The certification process for MDK2 took 9 months from start to finish. They have not seen a dime from the release, as you don’t get any money unless you sell more than 6,000 copies on WiiWare. The 40mb limit was a pain in the butt.
That sounds terrible, and would at least partially explain why none of the developers I spoke to at PAX had any plans at all to develop for WiiWare. Most told me they planned on waiting and seeing what the WiiU would have in terms of an eShop before even considering it. Of course the worst part of all is that Beamdog have stated:
We don’t do Nintendo development. Our previous experience with Nintendo was enough to ensure there will not be another.
Which stinks, because the MDK series was great, they’re handling the Baulder’s Gate remake and they’ve worked on some other pretty decent games. Here’s hoping the eShop for the Wii U wows everyone, eh?
