Nintendo's indie revolution

by Ross Miller { Mar 22nd 2006 at 2:55PM }

The folks over at TotalGamerZone have an interview with Greg Szemiot, the Director of Crossbeam Studios--one of three known independent developers who are looking to bring their titles to the Nintendo Revolution. Szemiot cited not just the lower development costs but the Revolution's controller as primary reasons for their Nintendo-centric development.

We are interested in seeing how Nintendo supports independent studios who wish to develop for the Revolution. If Nintendo embraces the "indie crowd," then maybe they can pull out an upset victory in console sales. More independent developers yields more (and more unique) titles for Nintendo's next-generation offering. Plus, we would love to see an online infrastructure similar to the Xbox Live Marketplace, where gamers could download arcade-style games with low development costs but addictive gameplay (think: Geometry Wars) in addition to the full Nintendo back catalog. We'd be willing to upgrade those 512MB flash memory cards for that.

Crossbeam has pledged 3 games for the Revolution (Orb, Thorn, and Darkness) which can be viewed on their website. The other two known indie developers include NIBRIS (the already-covered Raid over the River) and LifeSpark Studios (Sunder: Land of Divide).

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

DaveKap @ Mar 22nd 2006 3:02PM

Did Sunder seriously get officially picked up by Nintendo?! Why did I not hear this news! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

*drooled when the concept art leaked*

J B Cougar @ Mar 22nd 2006 3:09PM

I know its just concept art, but this site and those three game ideas look pretty slick regardless. Bring em on, the industry needs it.

Sense @ Mar 22nd 2006 3:34PM

Be sure to check out there next game, Orby Thorn of Darkness.

Seriously though, more independent games is good. Nintendo could do a service to the industry if they pick up this kind of thing.

I'm still waiting to see Xbox Live Arcade really take off in this area as well. Wik and Marble Blast are fun, but I'm waiting to see some addictive games that I haven't already played on the PC.

jay @ Mar 22nd 2006 3:34PM

This is why I'm after a Revolution. Forget Mario, Metroid and Zelda (regardless of how amazing they are), I've been a huge fan of independent games for a long time. I play more on freeware games than commercial. commercial is all about trying to entertain as many people as possible (guns, 'urban' etc) - independent seem to be more about the raw gameplay experience. I know there are commercial games like that too, but the whole indy world is so much nicer. so much more playable.

Those 3 games sound amazing. Orb has me though.

Just can't wait for the Rev. that cheap dev-kit price is going to pull in so many upcoming developers. cheers Nintendo.

Sense @ Mar 22nd 2006 3:42PM

Urgh...of course I meant "their" next game. Not "there". Excuse me while I go punish myself.

James @ Mar 22nd 2006 3:51PM

There's a bunch of great Third-Party and Indie companies that have "pledged their alligence" to the Revolution, but how many of them will actually have games ready for the launch?

It seems to me, that the vast majority of the few games to be available at launch, are all internally made Nintendo games.

LaughingTarget @ Mar 22nd 2006 3:58PM

"It seems to me, that the vast majority of the few games to be available at launch, are all internally made Nintendo games."

That isn't entirely too surprising. Unlike your corporate game producing machines like EA, indie game studios tend to have less of a reaction to delaying their titles to make sure they are perfect. They don't have massive fixed costs to worry about, after all, and all they tend to need is enough money to eat and the mortgage on the house that has the garage that keeps the Revolution dev kit.

Because of this, the indie scene will be absent in the launch window, but will produce some of the better games.

KimiSan @ Mar 22nd 2006 4:01PM

You know what I hate about those indie developers?
A. They need to prove themself before they go on splearting about how they'll make 43 Rev games
B. They should first finish ONE game, and not starting to think about the next ones, or of a seqeal to your correct one!

Nelstin @ Mar 22nd 2006 4:12PM

#1, Sunder hasn't been picked up by anyone. Hell, those "leaked" pics are the only work done on it. Kenton hasn't done any other work on it at all, and was the only person working on it to begin with. More than likely it will never come out, since he basicly gave up hope like a week after putting the pictures on his site.

Jesse Pentecost @ Mar 22nd 2006 6:26PM

thanks for posting this Joystiq. I actually did the interview with Crossbeam, I am really excited about all these new developers supporting Revolution

Sean DL @ Mar 22nd 2006 6:31PM

With this and Nintendo actually releasing students created games over in Japan to download vis there site....It really looking like Nintendo is going to be the Sundance of gaming...

mofomojo @ Mar 22nd 2006 6:38PM

Just further proof that the Revolution is going to kick PS3 and Xblox ass.

I mean, seriously, new form of gaming, great independent devs means good and unrepititive ideas (we need don't need anymore action military shooters where shits blows up in High Def with top of the line graphics, we need good original concepts for games with good graphics optional!).

Man, the revolution will be saviour from this current realm of incredibly stupid consumerism and crappy games.

Stu L Tissimus @ Mar 22nd 2006 6:58PM

Oh, come on now, guys. They *intend* to put their stuff on Revolution. What're the chances they'll actually find a publisher? I mean, hell, all the Sunder guys have is concept art.

OMG HAY GUYZ i wan 2 maek a gaem LOL! an itl be on da ReVooLUTiTON!

...BAM! INSTANT MEDIA COVERAGE!