I'm waiting to see:

Conitec Datensyteme GmbH
3DGameStudio
http://3dgamestudio.com

Does anybody have any information about wii sdk or dev kits. Any links of rheir developer's site. I think that as this console is the cheapest, and with new input device, would be fun and cheap to develop a game for it. And I have few concept games that would make the company interested in our games.

You need to become a "Licensee" before you can buy a Nintendo Dev-Kit.

I think this is up-to-date:

Quote:

---

Become a Licensee

Thank you for your interest in becoming an authorized Nintendo licensee for development of Nintendo video game system software.

Here are summaries of our Licensing Program which detail the requirements, terms and conditions of our license agreements.

GCN Terms and Conditions AGB Terms and Conditions

If, after a review of the appropriate summary, you remain interested in becoming a Nintendo licensee, please forward the following non-proprietary information to Nintendo:

1) A detailed description of your company, including a summary of your software development experience, financial resources and stability and your industry leadership. This information should be in the form of a prospectus, business plan or summary statement;

2) A detailed introduction to your key personnel and developers setting forth any technical, managerial or sales experience that may be relevant;

3) A marketing plan for your proposed products, including targeted distribution channels, advertising commitments, consumer service resources, merchandising, etc.;

4) Any market study information on consumer demand for your proposed product which you may be relying on;

5) A written description of your proposed software product;

6) A complete summary and at least three samples of software programs you have previously developed and upon which you rely for establishing your technical know-how.

Nintendo will then undertake to make a determination if your qualifications would support your selection as an authorized licensee. Because Nintendo licensees are provided with highly proprietary information and because our licensees must be able to successfully market and support high quality product to a broad base of Nintendo product users throughout the United States, Canada and South America, Nintendo exercises a high level of care in its appointment of its licensees. If we elect to proceed, we will prepare a formal license agreement which will be forwarded to you for your review. After the mutual execution of an Agreement, Nintendo will provide you with software development specifications, and support.

To obtain information regarding product submission to Nintendo's Mario Club and Lot Check department, please refer to our engineering website at: www.warioworld.com.

Again, thank you for your interest. We look forward to hearing from you.

Very truly yours,

NINTENDO OF AMERICA INC.

Juana Tingdale
Vice President, Licensing

---

I should note that, in the past, Nintendo has made it very hard for indie dev houses to get licensed. They may change this with Wii.

The real trick is finding a way to get their attention. With Microsoft or Sony, you could do that by making a great console style game on your PC (just buy one of their controllers and design around that) but, so far, there is no way to design a PC game that uses a Wii-style controller...


<edit>
It looks like Wii is giving a handout to the indie developers:

Quote:

---

Virtual Console: Wii will have downloadable access to 20 years of fan-favorite titles originally released for Nintendo 64, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and even the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The Virtual Console also will feature a "best of" selection from Sega Genesis titles and games from the TurboGrafx console (a system jointly developed by NEC and Hudson). It also will be home to new games conceived by indie developers whose creativity is larger than their budgets.

---

I don't know if the Virtual Console will let you access the Wii-remote, or just let you make your own SNES style games.

I am for developing games that would really attract attention of major houses and then will see what can be done. Till then I hope that in the next six months, the picture of company policies of console gaming and their Indie sdk's is more clear.

Quote:

---

To become a Wii authorized developer:

Software Development Kits: Approximate development costs range from $2,500 to $10,000

---

I don't know if you have seen this earlier or not, but a regular Wii authorized developer license is $2,500 to $10,000 only. Where as for previous consoles it was 10,000 to 20,000.

And I suppose that an Indie license will be far less than the regular license.

I got a "around $2000" quote from a Nintendo rep at the GDC.

But the trick isn't the cost, but getting Nintendo's approval.

Had I been a developer as 3dgs, then I would have biten the bite and bought the License, and tried my best efforts on seeing if the company was able to port the whole 3dgs or best parts of it for the console. If the development was really succesful, then would have thought about getting company's approval.

As a programmer and developer I know that, it is only to change from dx to propriety underlying graphics engine. And as standard the programming would be in 'C' or a variant of it. The whole thing in a dev suit like yours is collision detection and animation engine and such which are at higher level of classes. And as you are already able to give users the benefit of a scripting engine, there would be no need for users to know the inner workings of the console.

As an example take the case of TSE (Torque) which has been ported to xbox360, where the console developer has itself helped the TSE in porting it for their console.

But as a side note I would like to express my wishes that the company should focus on seeing if they are really able to do proting. If succesful then have a decent license of it for the would be developers.

Even Nintendo can be persuaded to be a partener in licensing of the engine, opening the market widely.

Indie developers are for fun and maybe some money and surely they can't give the big houses any tough competition.

I'm not sure if I'm following you here, but I need to point out that I wasn't offered a license from Nintendo, I just asked them how much a dev-kit would cost.

Trust me, if I could get a legal dev-kit for $2000 (or even $10,000), I would.

That's their legal dev-kit. Go to Apply - wii and there they have full details for how to become developer of wii and their legal wii kit. There are two options, one for -- currently working with an authorized Wii licensee, and the second for -- If you are NOT working with an authorized Wii licensee.

Hope that helps you a lot. And I am really looking forward to hearing any news about your current adventure. You are welcome to MSN me on msl_manni@hotmail.com for any thing you want to know. I will be glad to help you.

Correct. The first option is the one Conitec Datasystems would fill out after one of our clients gets a license by filling out the second.

From the Nintendo site:

Quote:

---

Keep in mind that we typically look for companies that are established game developers.

---

Nintendo wants to deal with game developers. Conitec Datasystems is a established middle-ware provider, not game developer. While our tools have been used to create hundreds of games, we haven't developed any of them.

So you need to get a license from Nintendo first.