Image and Form says DSiWare was an 'abomination', 3DS eShop completely turned things around
The following comes from an EDGE interview with CEO Brjann Sigurgeirsson...
“We thought the game wouldn’t stand a chance (with SteamWorld Tower Defense). To our surprise, Steamworld Tower Defense paid for itself quite quickly. I say it was a surprise, because the DSiWare Store was an abomination. There weren’t very many games on there and it was near-impossible to navigate. We got a great review from IGN, which probably saved the game.
The (3DS) ocean was very blue there compared to what the App Store had become. If we were going to leave mobile, we didn’t really know where else to go. We had no connections with Valve, Sony or Microsoft, but we had developed, submitted and published Steamworld Tower Defense. Nintendo treated us with respect from the very outset. It was a breath of fresh air to actually talk to real people from the platform on which we were about to launch, and Nintendo had completely transformed themselves.
The 3DS hardware was cool, but the really strong titles hadn’t arrived, and unit sales hadn’t taken off. The 3DS was in limbo. And yet, we had nowhere better to go. Then, in spring 2013 came Animal Crossing: New Leaf, sold like crazy and ruled the eShop sales charts. Suddenly it became clear that the 3DS was a hit product, dwarfing the PS Vita and beating all other devices.
We – and a few other indie devs – became poster boys for the new, indie-friendly Nintendo. We weren’t expecting them to be so responsive and personal – they’ve really turned themselves around in that respect. I would recommend any developer to contact them.”
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“We thought the game wouldn’t stand a chance (with SteamWorld Tower Defense). To our surprise, Steamworld Tower Defense paid for itself quite quickly. I say it was a surprise, because the DSiWare Store was an abomination. There weren’t very many games on there and it was near-impossible to navigate. We got a great review from IGN, which probably saved the game.
The (3DS) ocean was very blue there compared to what the App Store had become. If we were going to leave mobile, we didn’t really know where else to go. We had no connections with Valve, Sony or Microsoft, but we had developed, submitted and published Steamworld Tower Defense. Nintendo treated us with respect from the very outset. It was a breath of fresh air to actually talk to real people from the platform on which we were about to launch, and Nintendo had completely transformed themselves.
The 3DS hardware was cool, but the really strong titles hadn’t arrived, and unit sales hadn’t taken off. The 3DS was in limbo. And yet, we had nowhere better to go. Then, in spring 2013 came Animal Crossing: New Leaf, sold like crazy and ruled the eShop sales charts. Suddenly it became clear that the 3DS was a hit product, dwarfing the PS Vita and beating all other devices.
We – and a few other indie devs – became poster boys for the new, indie-friendly Nintendo. We weren’t expecting them to be so responsive and personal – they’ve really turned themselves around in that respect. I would recommend any developer to contact them.”
Link
