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Nintendo Developer Portal

399 points by aseipp 10y ago

phoboslab 10y ago
I previously worked with the Nintendo Web Framework to bring one of my HTML5 games to the Wii U[1]. NWF itself is quite polished and very easy to work with. You get all the dev tools you know from Chrome – the debugger connects directly to the console. "Porting" my game was very straight forward for the most part. However, the hardware setup was clunky. You're swapping out SD cards to install images with the system software and the account setup is really tedious. The worst part was the whole paperwork you have to wade through. The game submission process is as manual as it gets. There's no nice web interface to tie it all together - instead you're writing emails, filling out PDFs and Excel Sheets(!). Hundreds of emails. I can only hope that they improved the paperwork part. This was all about 2 years ago. [1] http://phoboslab.org/log/2014/07/xtype-plus-an-html5-game-for-the-nintendo-wii-u http://phoboslab.org/log/2014/07/xtype-plus-an-html5-game-fo...
- zongitsrinzler 10y ago
  Was it worth the trouble?
  - phoboslab 10y ago
    Financially? Not really. I made about $30k from the game in total. It's a very simple game, though. Nothing you'd expect big sales numbers from.
    - sdegutis 10y ago
      I guess that depends on how quickly you made the game and how many games you could make like that. Would the paperwork be the same amount for your second game? If not, it sounds like it'd be worthwhile to try to churn out simple games this way in the evenings/weekends (think: flappy bird, 2048, etc) and make a decent profit on the side.
    - llamataboot 10y ago
      Did it take you less than about 8 full time months to make the game? If so you just made the median salary in the US for full time work.
      - in_cahoots 10y ago
        I think the real question is whether he made more money than he would have otherwise in the same time, not where his earnings compare to the median employer.
      - st3v3r 10y ago
        Median salary in general is a meaningless comparison. You'd need to compare it to someone in their field.
- ionwake 10y ago
  Would WebGL games be compatible do you know?
- komali2 10y ago
  Having lived in Japan on and off for the past decade, this is just par for the course for a Japanese company. If you wanted to get anything done, it's done via fax. God knows why, that's just how it is. Everywhere. edit: I'm referring specifically to the need for lots of paperwork
markcerqueira 10y ago
I don't think this could have saved the Wii U from its mediocre fate, but if only this were available from Day 1...
- derefr 10y ago
  Wasn't it? I don't know about the 3DS, but I think this was up from very early on in the Wii U's lifecycle: http://web.archive.org/web/20160330230414/https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20160330230414/https://wiiu-devel...
markcerqueira 10y ago
If I'm reading this right, it'll cost at least $2,285.00 to get the minimum setup needed for development. Said that I can't use my existing Nintendo 3DS, 3DS XL, or new 3DS. Thanks, Nintendo! :/
- Danieru 10y ago
  That is about half the common cost for a devkit. Plus the 3DS and WiiU devkits are not just regular devices with a swapped ROM. They are special hardware run. If you have a publisher you could ask to borrow theirs. My last company was using one borrowed from the client. Sadly Nintendo less connections oriented. Sony lends devkits for free pretty often if you can convince them your game is going to be good.
  - snuxoll 10y ago
    Well, if you need to run flashed carts, then yes, they are custom hardware. Downloadable titles can be debugged and run on normal 2DS/3DS hardware with the IS-SNAKE according to the site, which still costs over $2K. The dev units themselves are fairly reasonably priced considering they'll have additional memory for debug builds, etc, and cost a reasonable amount - the problem is the flash card writer and debugger hardware that is needed to actually use them.
    - serge2k 10y ago
      couldnt they just do some sort of dev signing?
      - snuxoll 10y ago
        Actually, I was wrong, the IS-SNAKE is a complete "New 3DS" dev kit. These devices are resource constrained, so you need more memory, CPU, etc to be able to properly debug anything on these devices.
  - guptaneil 10y ago
    I remember writing games for a gameboy in an assembly class in college. We had to use an unofficial emulator because Nintendo wouldn't even give an official dev kit to schools. That should be an obvious opportunity to gain some new Nintendo game developers...
Danieru 10y ago
Working in the japanese game industry it feels like Nintendo is ramping up in a big way for the NX.So I assume this revamp is more in prep for the NX than it is for the WiiU.
- hoodoof 10y ago
  The PoGo game must be giving Nintendo believers a big morale boost.
  - snaky 10y ago
    Yes and no. Moving games to mobile platforms is a downward spiral, eating the future of Nintendo consoles.
    - joshschreuder 10y ago
      I disagree, as long as the experience is right. Nintendo have been hesitant because they don't want to dilute and diminish their IP, but if the experience is nailed (PoGo is close enough to nailing it, and should only get better) then the IP should only be bolstered by the mobile version. On the flipside, a traditional Mario / DK / whatever title on mobile for example would eat away at their console market, which is what they're aiming to avoid.
      - snaky 10y ago
        If you can play Pokemon on mobile, you won't buy next 3DS, plain and simple.
        dtech 10y ago
        I think that is why they made the experiences so vastly different.
        snaky 10y ago
        Of course they was trying to made is different, but it's just trying to minimize the damage.
hoodoof 10y ago
It's a strange thing that these companies seem only to open their platforms to development in a tardy and reluctant manner, Microsoft being a case in point - "developers, developers, developers" was the cheerleading chant from Steve Ballmer, unless of course the developers wanted to code for Xbox. They've opened it now I believe but again - extremely late in the game. Meanwhile, Apple welcomes developers from day one and there are so many applications developed that it's hard to get user attention amongst the app store noise.
- sho_hn 10y ago
  That's nonsense. When the iPhone launched it did so without a native app SDK, which was by far the biggest criticism leveled against it from the tech audience. They fixed it, but it wasn't day-one. And didn't the Apple TV launch without an app SDK initially, too? Meanwhile gaming consoles are obviously not open platforms, but the vendors /do/ usually entertain developer relations from day one - I can't recall any launches with only first-party games. Considering you can't deploy to iOS without Apple's approval, it's really not any more open than gaming consoles. The App Store and its approval process just operate at a larger scale, they're not conceptually more welcoming.
  - hoodoof 10y ago
    OK not literally day one but developer support for iPhone was obviously a key early priority, as opposed to Microsoft and Nintendo which seem(ed) unconvinced that anyone except appointed developers should be allowed to write code for their platforms. True that the Apple TV thing was not programamable till recently but I gotta say there's alot wrong with the AppleTV - it seems to be pretty blah and nothing and found no real definitive identity - a wasted opportunity on Apple's part.
    - josh2600 10y ago
      It was Web Apps only originally and that was the battle call from Apple. It wasn't until GeoHot (and others) rooted the phone and we got app stores like Cydia that Apple really started to care. It was with the launch of the iPhone 3G when they came out with the SDK + App Store and it was a really well executed coup. Do you know how you got software on your phone before the iPhone? Getjar or side-loading (with a proprietary cable almost no one had with apps that would sometimes hard break your phone).
byron_fast 10y ago
You know what would really matter is if they'd let me make an HTTP request from their devices. Not sure that's ever going to happen. I can understand why they have always locked that down, but at some point the possibilites have to outweigh the risks.
- JeremyBanks 10y ago
  I think it already "really matters" that one of the companies that's had the least open platforms for a decade is making such a dramatic shift.
  - byron_fast 10y ago
    Yeah that's true. The ability to self-publish is a huge deal, and very surprising from Nintendo.
kevindeasis 10y ago
How about something more interesting like the Pokemon Go developer program or API ? Now that sounds more of a win-win. Developers are interested, and gamers are interested in more features for Pokemon Go. Does anyone have the contemporary sales records for 3DS and Wii U?
- gambiting 10y ago
  What exactly would you do in a Pokemon Go developer program?
  - snaky 10y ago
    Selling emoji stickers.
  - imtringued 10y ago
    IoT pokeballs.
- 20years 10y ago
  I would personally love to see a Minecraft developer program. I was hoping Microsoft would have released one by now.
  - kevindeasis 10y ago
    That would be stellar. I've met some developers in my community who would be very interested in that
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    So... Forge?
- conradev 10y ago
  The company that created Pokemon Go is Niantic, not Nintendo (Niantic partnered with The Pokemon Company, which Nintendo owns a third of), So the company that would create a developer program for Pokemon Go would be Niantic, not Nintendo.
gambiting 10y ago
To be fair, it's not like it was difficult to sign up for a WiiU devkit before - nintendo had a very indie-friendly WiiU access program for more than a year now. 3DS access is new and much appreciated.
sspiff 10y ago
Anyone, with a few thousand dollars to spend on development hardware.
- zerr 10y ago
  There is no native dev option either. You're locked to Unity3D or web...
  - sspiff 10y ago
    Once I log in, I can download a bunch of things on their download page[0] for the 3DS, including a native toolchain (ARMCC) and various versions their low-level C library (nlib). [0] https://developer.nintendo.com/group/development/wtc6ppr2/downloads https://developer.nintendo.com/group/development/wtc6ppr2/do...
_pmf_ 10y ago
Nintendo just moves so slowly; everybody has been telling them for years to just stop developing subpar HW with gadgety features nobody wants and focus on creating mobile games. Pokemon Go alone will probably make more money than their whole last generation; imagine a mobile Zelda game (drool)!
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  Mobile games are a poor replacement for the experiences possible on dedicated gaming hardware, the control schemes for mobile games are generally sub-par for action-focused games.
  - _pmf_ 10y ago
    I agree (and like my DS), but the vast majority of people will never game on dedicated handheld in their lives, and that's the market that exists.
    - mirsadm 10y ago
      So the solution is to abandon the hardware market and make $0.99 mediocre mobile games instead?
      - buzzybee 10y ago
        The PC market contains a more comprehensive picture. There are plenty of "bad" yet profitable F2P PC MMOs. There are also plenty of respected premium games on Steam. F2P dominates the mass markets, but premium still captures the attention of the core audiences and enthusiast press. You don't develop for both - you target one or the other. They want different things. Relative to the size, average wealth and tastes of the market, premium now acts as the "luxury good", free is the "normal good", and generic knockoffs that litter app stores are the "substitute good". That's the result of having a race to the bottom through digital distribution - mediocre premium games fade from view in an instant, well-marketed ones continue to do gangbusters business. Console hardware preserves some role here in that it still offers the "best" premium experience, on average. PC games let you tinker with the settings more and add mods, but the lead platform for new, big budget games is usually console, and that includes portables. Plug and play still matters. Big budget experiences still matter. But it's not as big a business as the market for "small" mobile games - that's just how the numbers work out. This isn't the first time gaming has gone through a business model shift, of course. Arcade gameplay and its quarter-munching habits used to be the standard by which a game was judged. It wasn't until the 1990's that those tendencies stopped being a dominant influence.
partycoder 10y ago
Nintendo exclusive games are mostly what sells the consoles ("software sells hardware"). Right now Nintendo is mostly making remakes of their existing games and non-Nintendo publishers don't get to receive the same amount of attention/sales.
0xcde4c3db 10y ago
IIRC, they used to have a requirement that devkit stuff be kept in a locked, dedicated space, like an office, and a "home office" room supposedly wasn't good enough. Did they get rid of that?
- coldpie 10y ago
  Unsure, but I have a friend who had a Wii U devkit and they just kept it in their apartment. This was part of an indie developer outreach program.
- goodplay 10y ago
  Most likely. The FAQ states that home offices are acceptable (Second question from the bottom).
- jason_slack 10y ago
  You recall correctly. I had to sign that this was the case and be willing to verify that if they asked. I kept mine locked in a cabinet.
bluetidepro 10y ago
I really hope this encourages other programs like Sony or Microsoft to open up their developer programs more. Last time I looked into, it was a nightmare to try to get started up with Sony.
jason_slack 10y ago
I made an investment in a CAT-DEV more than a year ago. It was very hard to get working and their support wasn't great. Their forums were a lot better and I could find answers by reading threads. They use the Green Hills Multi Compiler and a version that doesn't even support C++11 yet. If you wanted Visual Studio support you had to be a member of Wario World developer program, in which I was denied, because they thought that having more than one idea meant you couldn't complete even one of those. I'll check this out again now and see how the offerings have changed.
bobsgame 10y ago
I signed up.

399 points by aseipp 10y ago

I previously worked with the Nintendo Web Framework to bring one of my HTML5 games to the Wii U[1]. NWF itself is quite polished and very easy to work with. You get all the dev tools you know from Chrome – the debugger connects directly to the console. "Porting" my game was very straight forward for the most part. However, the hardware setup was clunky. You're swapping out SD cards to install images with the system software and the account setup is really tedious. The worst part was the whole paperwork you have to wade through. The game submission process is as manual as it gets. There's no nice web interface to tie it all together - instead you're writing emails, filling out PDFs and Excel Sheets(!). Hundreds of emails. I can only hope that they improved the paperwork part. This was all about 2 years ago. [1] http://phoboslab.org/log/2014/07/xtype-plus-an-html5-game-for-the-nintendo-wii-u http://phoboslab.org/log/2014/07/xtype-plus-an-html5-game-fo...

zongitsrinzler 10y ago
Was it worth the trouble?
- phoboslab 10y ago
  Financially? Not really. I made about $30k from the game in total. It's a very simple game, though. Nothing you'd expect big sales numbers from.
  - sdegutis 10y ago
    I guess that depends on how quickly you made the game and how many games you could make like that. Would the paperwork be the same amount for your second game? If not, it sounds like it'd be worthwhile to try to churn out simple games this way in the evenings/weekends (think: flappy bird, 2048, etc) and make a decent profit on the side.
  - llamataboot 10y ago
    Did it take you less than about 8 full time months to make the game? If so you just made the median salary in the US for full time work.
    - in_cahoots 10y ago
      I think the real question is whether he made more money than he would have otherwise in the same time, not where his earnings compare to the median employer.
    - st3v3r 10y ago
      Median salary in general is a meaningless comparison. You'd need to compare it to someone in their field.
ionwake 10y ago
Would WebGL games be compatible do you know?
komali2 10y ago
Having lived in Japan on and off for the past decade, this is just par for the course for a Japanese company. If you wanted to get anything done, it's done via fax. God knows why, that's just how it is. Everywhere. edit: I'm referring specifically to the need for lots of paperwork

markcerqueira 10y ago

I don't think this could have saved the Wii U from its mediocre fate, but if only this were available from Day 1...

derefr 10y ago
Wasn't it? I don't know about the 3DS, but I think this was up from very early on in the Wii U's lifecycle: http://web.archive.org/web/20160330230414/https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20160330230414/https://wiiu-devel...

markcerqueira 10y ago

If I'm reading this right, it'll cost at least $2,285.00 to get the minimum setup needed for development. Said that I can't use my existing Nintendo 3DS, 3DS XL, or new 3DS. Thanks, Nintendo! :/

Danieru 10y ago
That is about half the common cost for a devkit. Plus the 3DS and WiiU devkits are not just regular devices with a swapped ROM. They are special hardware run. If you have a publisher you could ask to borrow theirs. My last company was using one borrowed from the client. Sadly Nintendo less connections oriented. Sony lends devkits for free pretty often if you can convince them your game is going to be good.
- snuxoll 10y ago
  Well, if you need to run flashed carts, then yes, they are custom hardware. Downloadable titles can be debugged and run on normal 2DS/3DS hardware with the IS-SNAKE according to the site, which still costs over $2K. The dev units themselves are fairly reasonably priced considering they'll have additional memory for debug builds, etc, and cost a reasonable amount - the problem is the flash card writer and debugger hardware that is needed to actually use them.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    couldnt they just do some sort of dev signing?
    - snuxoll 10y ago
      Actually, I was wrong, the IS-SNAKE is a complete "New 3DS" dev kit. These devices are resource constrained, so you need more memory, CPU, etc to be able to properly debug anything on these devices.
- guptaneil 10y ago
  I remember writing games for a gameboy in an assembly class in college. We had to use an unofficial emulator because Nintendo wouldn't even give an official dev kit to schools. That should be an obvious opportunity to gain some new Nintendo game developers...

Danieru 10y ago

Working in the japanese game industry it feels like Nintendo is ramping up in a big way for the NX.So I assume this revamp is more in prep for the NX than it is for the WiiU.

hoodoof 10y ago
The PoGo game must be giving Nintendo believers a big morale boost.
- snaky 10y ago
  Yes and no. Moving games to mobile platforms is a downward spiral, eating the future of Nintendo consoles.
  - joshschreuder 10y ago
    I disagree, as long as the experience is right. Nintendo have been hesitant because they don't want to dilute and diminish their IP, but if the experience is nailed (PoGo is close enough to nailing it, and should only get better) then the IP should only be bolstered by the mobile version. On the flipside, a traditional Mario / DK / whatever title on mobile for example would eat away at their console market, which is what they're aiming to avoid.
    - snaky 10y ago
      If you can play Pokemon on mobile, you won't buy next 3DS, plain and simple.
      - dtech 10y ago
        I think that is why they made the experiences so vastly different.
        snaky 10y ago
        Of course they was trying to made is different, but it's just trying to minimize the damage.

hoodoof 10y ago

It's a strange thing that these companies seem only to open their platforms to development in a tardy and reluctant manner, Microsoft being a case in point - "developers, developers, developers" was the cheerleading chant from Steve Ballmer, unless of course the developers wanted to code for Xbox. They've opened it now I believe but again - extremely late in the game. Meanwhile, Apple welcomes developers from day one and there are so many applications developed that it's hard to get user attention amongst the app store noise.

sho_hn 10y ago
That's nonsense. When the iPhone launched it did so without a native app SDK, which was by far the biggest criticism leveled against it from the tech audience. They fixed it, but it wasn't day-one. And didn't the Apple TV launch without an app SDK initially, too? Meanwhile gaming consoles are obviously not open platforms, but the vendors /do/ usually entertain developer relations from day one - I can't recall any launches with only first-party games. Considering you can't deploy to iOS without Apple's approval, it's really not any more open than gaming consoles. The App Store and its approval process just operate at a larger scale, they're not conceptually more welcoming.
- hoodoof 10y ago
  OK not literally day one but developer support for iPhone was obviously a key early priority, as opposed to Microsoft and Nintendo which seem(ed) unconvinced that anyone except appointed developers should be allowed to write code for their platforms. True that the Apple TV thing was not programamable till recently but I gotta say there's alot wrong with the AppleTV - it seems to be pretty blah and nothing and found no real definitive identity - a wasted opportunity on Apple's part.
  - josh2600 10y ago
    It was Web Apps only originally and that was the battle call from Apple. It wasn't until GeoHot (and others) rooted the phone and we got app stores like Cydia that Apple really started to care. It was with the launch of the iPhone 3G when they came out with the SDK + App Store and it was a really well executed coup. Do you know how you got software on your phone before the iPhone? Getjar or side-loading (with a proprietary cable almost no one had with apps that would sometimes hard break your phone).

byron_fast 10y ago

You know what would really matter is if they'd let me make an HTTP request from their devices. Not sure that's ever going to happen. I can understand why they have always locked that down, but at some point the possibilites have to outweigh the risks.

JeremyBanks 10y ago
I think it already "really matters" that one of the companies that's had the least open platforms for a decade is making such a dramatic shift.
- byron_fast 10y ago
  Yeah that's true. The ability to self-publish is a huge deal, and very surprising from Nintendo.

kevindeasis 10y ago

How about something more interesting like the Pokemon Go developer program or API ? Now that sounds more of a win-win. Developers are interested, and gamers are interested in more features for Pokemon Go. Does anyone have the contemporary sales records for 3DS and Wii U?

gambiting 10y ago
What exactly would you do in a Pokemon Go developer program?
- snaky 10y ago
  Selling emoji stickers.
- imtringued 10y ago
  IoT pokeballs.
20years 10y ago
I would personally love to see a Minecraft developer program. I was hoping Microsoft would have released one by now.
- kevindeasis 10y ago
  That would be stellar. I've met some developers in my community who would be very interested in that
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  So... Forge?
conradev 10y ago
The company that created Pokemon Go is Niantic, not Nintendo (Niantic partnered with The Pokemon Company, which Nintendo owns a third of), So the company that would create a developer program for Pokemon Go would be Niantic, not Nintendo.

gambiting 10y ago

To be fair, it's not like it was difficult to sign up for a WiiU devkit before - nintendo had a very indie-friendly WiiU access program for more than a year now. 3DS access is new and much appreciated.

sspiff 10y ago

Anyone, with a few thousand dollars to spend on development hardware.

zerr 10y ago
There is no native dev option either. You're locked to Unity3D or web...
- sspiff 10y ago
  Once I log in, I can download a bunch of things on their download page[0] for the 3DS, including a native toolchain (ARMCC) and various versions their low-level C library (nlib). [0] https://developer.nintendo.com/group/development/wtc6ppr2/downloads https://developer.nintendo.com/group/development/wtc6ppr2/do...

_pmf_ 10y ago

Nintendo just moves so slowly; everybody has been telling them for years to just stop developing subpar HW with gadgety features nobody wants and focus on creating mobile games. Pokemon Go alone will probably make more money than their whole last generation; imagine a mobile Zelda game (drool)!

ZenoArrow 10y ago
Mobile games are a poor replacement for the experiences possible on dedicated gaming hardware, the control schemes for mobile games are generally sub-par for action-focused games.
- _pmf_ 10y ago
  I agree (and like my DS), but the vast majority of people will never game on dedicated handheld in their lives, and that's the market that exists.
  - mirsadm 10y ago
    So the solution is to abandon the hardware market and make $0.99 mediocre mobile games instead?
    - buzzybee 10y ago
      The PC market contains a more comprehensive picture. There are plenty of "bad" yet profitable F2P PC MMOs. There are also plenty of respected premium games on Steam. F2P dominates the mass markets, but premium still captures the attention of the core audiences and enthusiast press. You don't develop for both - you target one or the other. They want different things. Relative to the size, average wealth and tastes of the market, premium now acts as the "luxury good", free is the "normal good", and generic knockoffs that litter app stores are the "substitute good". That's the result of having a race to the bottom through digital distribution - mediocre premium games fade from view in an instant, well-marketed ones continue to do gangbusters business. Console hardware preserves some role here in that it still offers the "best" premium experience, on average. PC games let you tinker with the settings more and add mods, but the lead platform for new, big budget games is usually console, and that includes portables. Plug and play still matters. Big budget experiences still matter. But it's not as big a business as the market for "small" mobile games - that's just how the numbers work out. This isn't the first time gaming has gone through a business model shift, of course. Arcade gameplay and its quarter-munching habits used to be the standard by which a game was judged. It wasn't until the 1990's that those tendencies stopped being a dominant influence.

partycoder 10y ago

Nintendo exclusive games are mostly what sells the consoles ("software sells hardware"). Right now Nintendo is mostly making remakes of their existing games and non-Nintendo publishers don't get to receive the same amount of attention/sales.

0xcde4c3db 10y ago

IIRC, they used to have a requirement that devkit stuff be kept in a locked, dedicated space, like an office, and a "home office" room supposedly wasn't good enough. Did they get rid of that?

coldpie 10y ago
Unsure, but I have a friend who had a Wii U devkit and they just kept it in their apartment. This was part of an indie developer outreach program.
goodplay 10y ago
Most likely. The FAQ states that home offices are acceptable (Second question from the bottom).
jason_slack 10y ago
You recall correctly. I had to sign that this was the case and be willing to verify that if they asked. I kept mine locked in a cabinet.

bluetidepro 10y ago

I really hope this encourages other programs like Sony or Microsoft to open up their developer programs more. Last time I looked into, it was a nightmare to try to get started up with Sony.

jason_slack 10y ago

I made an investment in a CAT-DEV more than a year ago. It was very hard to get working and their support wasn't great. Their forums were a lot better and I could find answers by reading threads. They use the Green Hills Multi Compiler and a version that doesn't even support C++11 yet. If you wanted Visual Studio support you had to be a member of Wario World developer program, in which I was denied, because they thought that having more than one idea meant you couldn't complete even one of those. I'll check this out again now and see how the offerings have changed.

bobsgame 10y ago

I signed up.