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You can only share them via private forums hosted by consoles parent companies, like siedev.net, developer.nintendo.com and similar. Direct sharing/selling of m
by dmytroi 6y ago
You can only share them via private forums hosted by consoles parent companies, like siedev.net, developer.nintendo.com and similar. Direct sharing/selling of middleware/code between companies is usually fully forbidden.
- _bxg1 6y agoIt's wild to me that even just the API would be so controlled. Is it not enough that they control signing of the software? Does this not shoot them in the foot when it comes to courting developers?
- bathtub365 6y agoConsoles have huge potential audiences if you want to make money off your games.
- bsanr2 6y agoLayman here, but IIUC it's the exact opposite. Nintendo in particular had massive problems with crapware and knockoff devs adopting the traditional 70s/80s PC game distribution paradigms, if you know what I mean. It was difficult to tell what was a genuine, high-quality purchase. Locking down development is apparently one of the reasons they won out over Atari. We're in a different world today, but 2/3rds of the major console market is Japanese, and the business culture there is supposedly very cautious about reapproaching things that have burnt the company in the past.
- jfkebwjsbx 6y ago> 2/3rds of the major console market is Japanese What do you mean?
- detaro 6y agoThere are 3 major console makers. Two of which are Japanese companies.
- jfkebwjsbx 6y agoThanks! I feel it is strange to refer to that as “console market”.
- _bxg1 6y agoThat explains why they locked their platforms down, but it doesn't explain why they need to do that at the API level. They already totally control the storefronts and all software run on a console must be signed by them. That should be enough to prevent the Atari situation on its own.
- babuskov 6y agoAPI lockdown is most probably to prevent crackers from learning enough about the system to create pirated copies of games.
- jfkebwjsbx 6y agoEach of them has a monopoly on the store for their platforms, so courting developers is not a high priority. Specially small developers that would benefit from such free middleware...
- _bxg1 6y agoThey compete with each other. Imagine how many indies one of the major consoles would draw by making it so much easier to develop.
- babuskov 6y agoMost indies already use Unity, which has support for all consoles. Most indies don't even know a single native API call. Unless the game needs something very special, they just use Unity API for everything.
- jfkebwjsbx 6y agoThe issue is the other way around. The companies hold the gates to millions and millions of potential buyers. Indies want to sell in all of them and there is no other way for them to do so. In addition, consider that most indies use Unity/UE, which already support the consoles, so vendors couldn't compete on ease of development even if they wanted. If Godot was overwhelmingly used by indies, then yes, you could be right.
- whateveracct 6y agoSo I guess I could share it on the private forums and link to it whenever someone is interested. Definitely a pain in the ass compared to even iOS as a walled garden.