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Platform holder Nintendo is attempting to publicly pin down its corporate philosophy on independent games development, having previously made unpopular comments on the matter.
In the space of a month, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata warned developers of their rush to mobile phones, while Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime blasted that the firm is “not looking to do business with the garage developer”.
This time it was the turn of a PR director to manage the largely unpopular and widely debated comments.
Marc Franklin told Gamasutra that Nintendo, in fact, “always appreciates good quality content regardless of whether that’s coming from an indie developer or a more established publisher”.
“For example, we’ve worked with 2D Boy, the people behind World of Goo for WiiWare," he said.
"This is a group of guys who don’t even have an office. So we embrace that kind of independent spirit and it’s ultimately the most innovative content that will rise to the top."
Franklin’s comment comes in the wake of two indie studios recently airing their dissatisfaction with Nintendo.
Super Meat Boy creator Team Meat has complained of prohibitively small file capacities on WiiWare.
Meanwhile, UK studio Different Cloth has claimed Nintendo will not pay out royalties for the WiiWare game Lilt Line until a defined sales target is passed.
Iwata’s extraordinary GDC speech had warned developers that the flood of mobile games has begun to lower the value of games in the consumer conscience.
"The value of video game software does not matter to [mobile and social game distributors]. … The fact is, what we produce has value, and we should protect that value," Iwata said at the time.
Develop’s report on Iwata’s speech can be found here. Spilt Milk Studios founder Andrew Smith has today published an op ed defending the Nintendo chief’s stance on the matter – found here.
