Game Devs Migrating Toward iPhone, Away From Wii 143
A new report by Game Developer Research reveals that the number of developers working on games for the iPhone continues to rise, roughly doubling in number from last year. At the same time, the amount of work done on games for Nintendo's Wii dropped significantly:
"Just over 70 percent of developers said they were developing at least one game for PC or Mac (including browser and social games), rising slightly from last year; 41 percent reported working on console games. Within that latter group, Xbox 360 was the most popular system with 69 percent of console developers targeting it, followed by 61 percent for PlayStation 3. While those console figures stayed within a few percent of last year's results, the change in Wii adoption was much more significant: reported developer support for the system dropped from 42 percent to 30 percent of console developers, supporting numerous publishers' claims of a recent softening of the Wii market."
Why Wii and iPhone developers would differ (Score:5, Informative)
The summary seems to create the assumption that the same developers which are abandoning the Wii are moving to the iPhone.
You're likely right. I imagine the recession starting in 2008 has slowed major label video game development in general, and a different group of developers are doing things on the iPhone. Unlike Wii Shop Channel, which requires developers to have a dedicated office and a successful commercial title on another platform, Apple's App Store model (almost an exact copy of Microsoft's Xbox Live Indie Games) is much friendlier to 1- and 2-man shops.
Re:False assumption? (Score:5, Informative)
wrong
each itunes account can support up to 5 computers and as far as i know an unlimited number of idevices like the iphone, ipod or apple TV. you buy something once from the iTunes store and you can play it back on any device associated with that account
Re:They're giving it 160%! (Score:2, Informative)
because no one has ever released a game for multiple platforms.
Re:False assumption? (Score:1, Informative)
Also, the Iphone has sold about twice as many units as the dsI.
Ummm what? The DS (yes, you have to count all versions in the wild) by far outnumbers iPhones. There is a reason that stupid meme of "printing money" was passed around for such a long time.
Re:Nintendo does it to themselves (Score:3, Informative)
Nintendo isn't very hostile anymore, especially not enough to make ignoring half the console market worth it. Third parties only make godawful games for the Wii to prey on "stupid casuals" while putting anything worth buying on the 360 and PS3, then they proclaim that third party games don't sell on the Wii. I don't know if they honestly believe the bullshit they've been spouting but they act like Nintendo is some magical being that does not follow the rules of the market that the rest of the world follows and is inherently the only company capable of making games sell on the Wii. No matter how many stupid prejudices you have about the Wii userbase, there should be no reason that the next big thing on the system can't be made by a third party instead of Nintendo but the third parties don't think of ideas like Wii Fit until Nintendo does it first, grabs the whole market and shows them how it's done properly (at which point third parties will release shoddy knockoffs that will not convince anybody to buy a non-Nintendo game). If you only offer products that have been done before and better how do you expect to compete?
For visualization, look at these lists [nintendoworldreport.com] and imagine you aren't informed as to which games are good, wouldn't you likely end up with a few duds and associate those company names with crap? I've seen user reviews on Amazon for a shitty Wii Sports knockoff by Activision and these "non-gamers" swore to never buy a game from Activision again because they felt cheated out of their money. Is that how you develop a positive brand image?
Re:False assumption? (Score:2, Informative)
If you're logged in, you can set what sections show on the front page (one of which is an "apple" section.)
If you're using RSS, you'll have to filter it yourself, or use the individual section RSS feeds.
XNA was first by 7 months (Score:4, Informative)
Microsofts Indy games for live is the copy, the app store predates it
XNA Game Studio 2.0 [wikipedia.org] (which introduced what is now Xbox Live Indie Games): December 2007. App Store [wikipedia.org]: July 2008. When I first read about the App Store's business model, I found the $99 fee and the 70/30 split to be suspicious similarities.
Re:False assumption? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but that's bullshit. I've had activated computers die more than once. You load up iTunes (on any working machine), go into "account settings" and click "deauthorize all". You can then freely authorize any five computers.
I've done this multiple times. I've had three different machines die when "authorized", done this each time, yet right this moment I have five different machines authorized to play with the same account.
Re:False assumption? (Score:3, Informative)
Just watch out if your computer dies and you have no way to start iTunes and click "Deactivate". 5 dead computers later and all your purchases are history.
... except for the part where you can fire up iTunes on your new computer, sign into your account without activating, and click "Deauthorize All Computers" and then activate your new computer(s).
Re:False assumption? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nintendo does it to themselves (Score:3, Informative)
Surely there's only one mobile phone company that [DRM lock-in] applies to (Apple)? The rest, you are free to write apps for them.
Are you talking about only smartphones? A lot of feature phones still use BREW [wikipedia.org].