Indie Developer Claims Wii Program “On Hold”

Independent developer Persuasive Games has claimed that, according to information supplied to it from Nintendo itself, Nintendo’s Wii Independent Developer Program is currently “on hold”, due to a lack of available development kits for smaller studios. Writing in a weblog post on the Water Cooler Games 'serious games' website, founding partner Ian Bogost claims that he has received an update from Nintendo of America indicating that those without a publisher contract will have to wait longer than previously thought for development hardware. Development kits were expected to be made available in January, but Bogost, who also writes a regular column for Gamasutra sister site Serious Games Source, claims that his Nintendo contact has informed him that the Developer Program is “on hold” until the end of the month. He quotes the unnamed contact as saying “the Wii publishers are taking all of the available inventory [of development kits], and more.” Although Nintendo has never publicly elaborated on its plans, the company has for a long time indicated that it will support independent developers on the Wii. These have been implied to be via downloadable games, obtained in a similar manner to existing Virtual Console titles, although the possibility of specially compatible Web-based games has also been putatively raised in the past.