Wii-ll that be enough for U?
Early this year, Nintendo hopped aboard the train to Indiesville, coaxing all sorts of positive assessments of the company’s and the Wii U’s future. Those investments, of course, are long term. Now that Nintendo has dropped various barriers to indie publishing, save for in Japan, oddly enough, it has to wait for the content to drop while Wii U sales hit dramatic lows.
Fun fact: Bioshock Infinite has sold more copies than Wii U has shipped consoles. Not a barometer for anything, just fun with numbers.
Games might just start flowing in, however, according to Nintendo’s Business Development Manager and general indie guy Dan Adelman. Speaking to Joystiq, Adelman said of the indie space, “We underestimated how much demand was out there, so we’re trying to catch up a little bit.” “Catch up a bit” it seems the Wii U’s indie eShop presence is doing. Apparently 20-30 new indie games are expected to hit the Wii U eShop by the holidays.
Good news for the console, though it perhaps could’ve used some of those games earlier on, as now its bigger name retail releases are dropping, like Pikmin 3 and everything else in the fall lineup, like Wonderful 101 and Rayman Legends. Will a deluge of indie games sell you on the platform? Are you even going to pick any of them up amidst another saturated fall and holiday release window?
Nintendo’s indie guy on opening the gates for developers [Joystiq]