Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Nintendo: the 3DS will be more expensive to develop for

The enhanced capabilities of the 3DS means that Nintendo's new console could cost as much to develop for as the Wii.

As reported by gamesindustry.biz, Nintendo president and CEO, Satoru Iwata, was quoted as saying "because the visual capabilities of Nintendo 3DS are more powerful than the existing Nintendo DS, if you are going to take full advantage of the graphics capability of Nintendo 3DS, the development cost is also expected to rise."

Iwata was also quoted as saying it would still be possible to develop inexpensively for the 3DS, and that the 3D capabilities of the console were not hard to work with.

Just as well - I suspect that one of the appeals of the DS, from a developer and publisher point of view, was the relative inexpensive process of creating a game for a console with a large userbase.

Of course, a console that is expensive to develop for is also one with a degree of quality control - something Nintendo consoles have been criticised for having a lack of recently.

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