Prior to his talk at this week’s GameCity event, Zoonami founder Martin Hollis told GI.biz that he believes Nintendo hasn’t promoted its WiiWare or DSiWare download services. Hollis says that Apple has used the lack of competition to corner the download market with iOS devices.
"Apple have had such massive success in capturing media attention - they've sucked all of the air out of it," he said. "I don't know that Nintendo's putting a great deal of energy into trying to generate PR for WiiWare or DSiWare."
Hollis believes that WiiWare is still a possible moneymaker though.
"My impression is that you can make a game if you've got a few thousand Euros, Dollars, Pounds - because you will need a dev kit or two.. [If] you've got two really talented guys, you can make a game, and you can sell 200,000 and upwards,” he said. "So the opportunities are there for people, you have to make a game that fits in with Nintendo - has a Nintendo feeling."
The lack of titles also means that those who develop for WiiWare and DSiWare face an open market with a relative lack of competition. A similar comment was made about the PSP space by developer Slitherine.
"I think it's a very fine thing. The best thing about it is the size of the marketplace you can access. There's a huge number of people who have a Wii, and a goodly proportion of those download games from WiiWare - it's tens of millions of people, and it's not overloaded with games, unlike some other app stores I could mention,” said Hollis with a comment obviously aimed at Apple’s offering.
"Our experience was extremely positive, but our title was a second-party title and it did have some TV advertising with a spot inside a larger advert for Wii. We assume that has to have an impact," he said. "As for margins, it's always the case that, if you make a good game you're selling ten or a hundred times as many units as the guy who made a mediocre game, a game that's maybe a little bit sub-par. Not much, but just a little bit. So that factor completely overrides any other."
