
Nintendo Developer Portal - aseipp
https://developer.nintendo.com
======
jason_slack
I made an investment in a CAT-DEV more than a year ago. It was very hard to
get working and their support wasn't great. Their forums were a lot better and
I could find answers by reading threads. They use the Green Hills Multi
Compiler and a version that doesn't even support C++11 yet. If you wanted
Visual Studio support you had to be a member of Wario World developer program,
in which I was denied, because they thought that having more than one idea
meant you couldn't complete even one of those.

I'll check this out again now and see how the offerings have changed.

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partycoder
Nintendo exclusive games are mostly what sells the consoles ("software sells
hardware").

Right now Nintendo is mostly making remakes of their existing games and non-
Nintendo publishers don't get to receive the same amount of attention/sales.

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gambiting
To be fair, it's not like it was difficult to sign up for a WiiU devkit before
- nintendo had a very indie-friendly WiiU access program for more than a year
now. 3DS access is new and much appreciated.

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bluetidepro
I really hope this encourages other programs like Sony or Microsoft to open up
their developer programs more. Last time I looked into, it was a nightmare to
try to get started up with Sony.

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markcerqueira
I don't think this could have saved the Wii U from its mediocre fate, but if
only this were available from Day 1...

~~~
derefr
Wasn't it? I don't know about the 3DS, but I think this was up from very early
on in the Wii U's lifecycle:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20160330230414/https://wiiu-
devel...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160330230414/https://wiiu-
developers.nintendo.com/)

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bobsgame
I signed up.

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sspiff
Anyone, with a few thousand dollars to spend on development hardware.

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zerr
There is no native dev option either. You're locked to Unity3D or web...

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sspiff
Once I log in, I can download a bunch of things on their download page[0] for
the 3DS, including a native toolchain (ARMCC) and various versions their low-
level C library (nlib).

[0]
[https://developer.nintendo.com/group/development/wtc6ppr2/do...](https://developer.nintendo.com/group/development/wtc6ppr2/downloads)

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byron_fast
You know what would really matter is if they'd let me make an HTTP request
from their devices. Not sure that's ever going to happen. I can understand why
they have always locked that down, but at some point the possibilites have to
outweigh the risks.

~~~
JeremyBanks
I think it already "really matters" that one of the companies that's had the
least open platforms for a decade is making such a dramatic shift.

~~~
byron_fast
Yeah that's true. The ability to self-publish is a huge deal, and very
surprising from Nintendo.

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0xcde4c3db
IIRC, they used to have a requirement that devkit stuff be kept in a locked,
dedicated space, like an office, and a "home office" room supposedly wasn't
good enough. Did they get rid of that?

~~~
jason_slack
You recall correctly. I had to sign that this was the case and be willing to
verify that if they asked. I kept mine locked in a cabinet.

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_pmf_
Nintendo just moves so slowly; everybody has been telling them for years to
just stop developing subpar HW with gadgety features nobody wants and focus on
creating mobile games. Pokemon Go alone will probably make more money than
their whole last generation; imagine a mobile Zelda game (drool)!

~~~
ZenoArrow
Mobile games are a poor replacement for the experiences possible on dedicated
gaming hardware, the control schemes for mobile games are generally sub-par
for action-focused games.

~~~
_pmf_
I agree (and like my DS), but the vast majority of people will never game on
dedicated handheld in their lives, and that's the market that exists.

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mirsadm
So the solution is to abandon the hardware market and make $0.99 mediocre
mobile games instead?

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buzzybee
The PC market contains a more comprehensive picture. There are plenty of "bad"
yet profitable F2P PC MMOs. There are also plenty of respected premium games
on Steam. F2P dominates the mass markets, but premium still captures the
attention of the core audiences and enthusiast press. You don't develop for
both - you target one or the other. They want different things. Relative to
the size, average wealth and tastes of the market, premium now acts as the
"luxury good", free is the "normal good", and generic knockoffs that litter
app stores are the "substitute good". That's the result of having a race to
the bottom through digital distribution - mediocre premium games fade from
view in an instant, well-marketed ones continue to do gangbusters business.

Console hardware preserves some role here in that it still offers the "best"
premium experience, on average. PC games let you tinker with the settings more
and add mods, but the lead platform for new, big budget games is usually
console, and that includes portables. Plug and play still matters. Big budget
experiences still matter. But it's not as big a business as the market for
"small" mobile games - that's just how the numbers work out.

This isn't the first time gaming has gone through a business model shift, of
course. Arcade gameplay and its quarter-munching habits used to be the
standard by which a game was judged. It wasn't until the 1990's that those
tendencies stopped being a dominant influence.

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kevindeasis
How about something more interesting like the Pokemon Go developer program or
API ? Now that sounds more of a win-win.

Developers are interested, and gamers are interested in more features for
Pokemon Go. Does anyone have the contemporary sales records for 3DS and Wii U?

~~~
20years
I would personally love to see a Minecraft developer program. I was hoping
Microsoft would have released one by now.

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kevindeasis
That would be stellar. I've met some developers in my community who would be
very interested in that

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markcerqueira
If I'm reading this right, it'll cost at least $2,285.00 to get the minimum
setup needed for development. Said that I can't use my existing Nintendo 3DS,
3DS XL, or new 3DS. Thanks, Nintendo! :/

~~~
Danieru
That is about half the common cost for a devkit. Plus the 3DS and WiiU devkits
are not just regular devices with a swapped ROM. They are special hardware
run. If you have a publisher you could ask to borrow theirs. My last company
was using one borrowed from the client.

Sadly Nintendo less connections oriented. Sony lends devkits for free pretty
often if you can convince them your game is going to be good.

~~~
snuxoll
Well, if you need to run flashed carts, then yes, they are custom hardware.
Downloadable titles can be debugged and run on normal 2DS/3DS hardware with
the IS-SNAKE according to the site, which still costs over $2K. The dev units
themselves are fairly reasonably priced considering they'll have additional
memory for debug builds, etc, and cost a reasonable amount - the problem is
the flash card writer and debugger hardware that is needed to actually use
them.

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serge2k
couldnt they just do some sort of dev signing?

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snuxoll
Actually, I was wrong, the IS-SNAKE is a complete "New 3DS" dev kit. These
devices are resource constrained, so you need more memory, CPU, etc to be able
to properly debug anything on these devices.

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hoodoof
It's a strange thing that these companies seem only to open their platforms to
development in a tardy and reluctant manner, Microsoft being a case in point -
"developers, developers, developers" was the cheerleading chant from Steve
Ballmer, unless of course the developers wanted to code for Xbox. They've
opened it now I believe but again - extremely late in the game.

Meanwhile, Apple welcomes developers from day one and there are so many
applications developed that it's hard to get user attention amongst the app
store noise.

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sho_hn
That's nonsense. When the iPhone launched it did so without a native app SDK,
which was by far the biggest criticism leveled against it from the tech
audience. They fixed it, but it wasn't day-one. And didn't the Apple TV launch
without an app SDK initially, too?

Meanwhile gaming consoles are obviously not open platforms, but the vendors
/do/ usually entertain developer relations from day one - I can't recall any
launches with only first-party games.

Considering you can't deploy to iOS without Apple's approval, it's really not
any more open than gaming consoles. The App Store and its approval process
just operate at a larger scale, they're not conceptually more welcoming.

~~~
cthulha
My understanding was that the SDK at release 1.0 would have been terrible, and
an expensive maintenance burden. The internal teams rushed hack jobs just to
get the first iPhone out the door, there was a _lot_ of internal bugs and
half-baked APIs.

So if you're arguing Apple is hostile to developers because they didn't have
an SDK on launch day, then you haven't thought through what iterative
development at very large scale actually requires. Giving developers access to
tools that aren't ready isn't the best criteria.

~~~
sho_hn
I do think Apple is hostile to developers, because I don't want a vendor to
get inbetween me and my user audience, but that problem applies equally to iOS
devices and gaming consoles.

I didn't argue that point in my post. I'm aware the reasons for the iPhone not
having a SDK on day one and the reasons for why gaming console vendors don't
have a mass developer relations story are very different.

The more interesting point is that developer relations for gaming consoles and
iOS devices are really conceptually pretty similar: Both require you to ask
the device vendor for permission to ship your app. It's equally walled
gardens.

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tommorris
> I don't want a vendor to get inbetween me and my user audience, but that
> problem applies equally to iOS devices and gaming consoles.

So, pre-iPhone, the market for downloadable apps for mobile phones was huge
and there wasn't any intermediary parties (like, say, network operators)
getting in the way of developers, right?

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daxelrod
On my Palm Treo, apps were plentiful and there was no intermediary.

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tommorris
And widely used by millions of people?

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daxelrod
Yes, several million Treos alone were sold, and the Palm ecosystem was much
larger than just the Treo line.
[http://blog.treonauts.com/2006/03/sales_double_ov.html](http://blog.treonauts.com/2006/03/sales_double_ov.html)

For a number of years, Palm OS was the dominant mobile ecosystem, with sales
almost double of its main competitor WindowsCE.

~~~
tommorris
Several million devices sold ≠ several million people buying software for
device.

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phoboslab
I previously worked with the Nintendo Web Framework to bring one of my HTML5
games to the Wii U[1].

NWF itself is quite polished and very easy to work with. You get all the dev
tools you know from Chrome – the debugger connects directly to the console.
"Porting" my game was very straight forward for the most part.

However, the hardware setup was clunky. You're swapping out SD cards to
install images with the system software and the account setup is really
tedious.

The worst part was the whole paperwork you have to wade through. The game
submission process is as manual as it gets. There's no nice web interface to
tie it all together - instead you're writing emails, filling out PDFs and
Excel Sheets(!). Hundreds of emails.

I can only hope that they improved the paperwork part. This was all about 2
years ago.

[1] [http://phoboslab.org/log/2014/07/xtype-plus-an-html5-game-
fo...](http://phoboslab.org/log/2014/07/xtype-plus-an-html5-game-for-the-
nintendo-wii-u)

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zongitsrinzler
Was it worth the trouble?

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phoboslab
Financially? Not really. I made about $30k from the game in total. It's a very
simple game, though. Nothing you'd expect big sales numbers from.

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llamataboot
Did it take you less than about 8 full time months to make the game? If so you
just made the median salary in the US for full time work.

~~~
in_cahoots
I think the real question is whether he made more money than he would have
otherwise in the same time, not where his earnings compare to the median
employer.

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Danieru
Working in the japanese game industry it feels like Nintendo is ramping up in
a big way for the NX.So I assume this revamp is more in prep for the NX than
it is for the WiiU.

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hoodoof
The PoGo game must be giving Nintendo believers a big morale boost.

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snaky
Yes and no. Moving games to mobile platforms is a downward spiral, eating the
future of Nintendo consoles.

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joshschreuder
I disagree, as long as the experience is right.

Nintendo have been hesitant because they don't want to dilute and diminish
their IP, but if the experience is nailed (PoGo is close enough to nailing it,
and should only get better) then the IP should only be bolstered by the mobile
version.

On the flipside, a traditional Mario / DK / whatever title on mobile for
example would eat away at their console market, which is what they're aiming
to avoid.

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snaky
If you can play Pokemon on mobile, you won't buy next 3DS, plain and simple.

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morgante
I don't think that's true, at least when it comes to Pokemon Go.

Playing Pokemon Go has inspired me to dig out my ancient gameboy and to start
playing Pokemon again. I'm strongly considering buying a new Nintendo
device—I'd forgotten how fun Pokemon is.

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Slump
Totally anecdotal but I had the same experience. Playing Pokemon Go prompted
me to go on a nostalgia-fest and purchase red and green on VC for my 3DS. I
wouldn't be surprised if the core game sales are seeing an uptick from the
interest around Pokemon Go if for no reason other than it reminds those of us
that were around for the original Pokemon surge.

