The main talking point, though, is that of WiiWare and how IGN has recently spoken with several developers that are using the service. According to these sources, most games are being budgeted at $100,000 or lower, with game developers able to either pitch ideas directly to Nintendo or Third Parties can simply go through the standard publisher route as well. Lots of “really weird deals” are currently underway as a result, with smaller companies trying very different models for the greatest profit and smallest risk. At present, the balance of Nintendo games to Third Party efforts is 35 : 65, as Nintendo is actively encouraging developers to try this route and not impact too much on their progress and success (as some have complained about on the Wii console side, with Nintendo’s games taking the greater share of sales).

In addition to this, the size limit on all WiiWare titles is currently 40MB, no doubt due to the space issues of the Wii’s internal memory, but officially Nintendo wants to encourage the development of super simple games that can be loved by everyone the world over. To help enforce this, Nintendo is throwing in the incentive of paying developers quicker if they keep their file sizes as small as possible. Matt states that he knows of ten games currently in development. As for the price of games, these are directly set by the developer, meaning things should work out cheaper overall for the consumer. And there is no need to worry about heaps of low quality rubbish hitting WiiWare, since Nintendo is only permitting one release per month per developer to discourage some teams simple shoving as many games on as possible without putting any real effort into development.