hey,

I saw that it was brought up before here the idea whether or not A7 will have the ability to port to the Wii.

I only bring this up due to that fact that the Wii developers kit is now only $1700 which is a small price to pay to possibly be able to add this very attractive option to the A7 engine. In addition i think this addition could really help the gamestudio community with torque now having the ability to port to xbox360.

..or perhaps a higher end edition (beyond Pro..Wii Edition?) with this option for those who wanted it.

Wii edition i like it.

I think Porting to an external platform is not as easy as giving away few bucks.

Engine must be capable to be ran at the platform
Engine must be tested on the platform
User must understand the platform
User must be capable to test the game on the platform

Too much for average user, so to still get the Wii porting;
Additional edition, "Professional Plus" with Wii Porting Capability.

(and then we notice that Microsoft products like DirectX aren't supported by Nintendo Wii.)

...of course the average user wouldn't be able to use the Wii Edition. However having such an option for developers who do understand it and can actually use it is the target audience (Xbox 360 Edition?). It's no different than Quest3D's higher priced editions such as the Virtual Reality one that costs close to if not exactly $10,000 vs. the much lower priced beginner's editions that cost less than $100(used to I think) to a few hundred. The average user isn't going to slam down 10 grand, however there are those that will if they have a serious project and financial backing of some sort.

I suppose Xbox360 would be the more ideal choice given its relationship to Windows and DirectX. Of course, getting the game made and getting approval from MS is another matter all together. However, if the game is good enough, this may not be a problem; thus the serious developer vs. hobbyist, weekend warrior.

Box three-sixty porting is possible, but not so straight forwardish.

You make the game, approve it for Conitec, then approve it for Microsoft, pay up, test it on the 360, when done contact conitec, pay some cash and they port it.

If I have understood the system right..

Ok i really was asking this to see if they could add the ability to port the a game/program to wii from gamestudio. I know that to sell the game would be another deal but to add the ability to play your games on the wii would be a very nice option for gamestudio. Much the same with torque and xbox360.

They probably could port it - but it's not those 1700 bucks which are causing problems.
Converting to Wii is way more than just buying a devkit and pressing the convert button. A6/7 is an engine heavily relying on Direct x - huge parts of the core would need a complete rewrite for Wii.

And as mentioned before it's not that you can just release your game then. You need approval by Nintendo, Microsoft or whoever. This is the most difficult task.
If they really *WANT* your game, then there will be a way to get it running on Wii and/or 360... money won't be the problem then.

The issue isn't cost. I'm interested in who they let have them.

I honestly haven't keep up-to-data on Nintendo's policy on dev kits. Can anybody buy them? If so, show me the link.