Indie help! XBLA, WiiWare, PSN or PC?
Choosing which gaming platform to develop for is a difficult decision, yet it’s one which many indie developers take too quickly. I’m going to share a few thoughts that I hope will help guide developers in the right direction, and that may provoke discussion amongst developers of all levels of experience.
A question I hear all the time from indie developers is:
How do we get on Xbox Live Arcade?
To which my answer is:
Are you sure you want to be on there?
That’s when they look at me with wild, ‘are you mental?’ eyes. They often don’t really have an answer – it’s just because they heard that it was popular. Don’t get me wrong – XBLA is a platform with a lot of potential and it can really work for indies. However, developers need to carefully consider what platform they want to develop on – companies live or die on this decision.
Over the next few days I’ll post up some pros and cons of XBLA, WiiWare, PSN and also digital distribution on the PC.
Follow me here where I’ll discuss the most well known of the platforms, Xbox Live Arcade.
Tags: console, development, indie, pc, platforms, psn, wiiware, xbla
NESTA games event report
NESTA announced their support for the game industry at a launch event yesterday. There were a few short speeches from a somewhat eclectic mix of people including Rory Cellan Jones (BBC Technology Correspondent), Adam Gee (Channel 4), Paul Durrant (Dare to be Digital), Richard Wilson (TIGA), Jon Kingsbury (NESTA), and Charles Cecil (Revolution Software). Frank [...]
NESTA to announce game industry support
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited down to a workshop at NESTA, a UK science and arts innovation support agency. Along with a small number of other developers and representatives from the likes of TIGA and BERR, we discussed how NESTA could potentially help the UK game industry. Today [...]
A day in the life of Tuna
Ever wanted to know what a creative director gets up to at work? The truth is out. Our Andy likes to do a spot of sewing. This is our idea of “research”.
Also, a prize kudos to any old hands who recognize the books to the left of the LCD.
Tags: creative director, humour, sewing, tuna
Yahtzee yawns over MGS4
Yahtzee, the fastest speaking presenter since that rather bizarre French bloke on Rapido, has posted his review of Solid Snake’s latest adventures in Metal Gear Solid 4. I’d love to give my take on the game but I have a pathological hatred of games with lengthy cut scenes and piecemeal gameplay. Actually I wouldn’t know [...]
It’s ALIVE!
It’s been a long time coming, but newretro.org is finally here!
I’ll be posting about a wide range of topics about different aspects of game development, and particularly about indie games. I’ll also have be posting a few items about other things that interest me, such as about vinyl toys, genre film and television.
For more about [...]
