Beamdog founder surprised by reaction to comments, may consider Wii U development
Beamdog founder Trent Oster is surprised by the reaction to his comments regarding the company’s experience with Nintendo and the WiiWare service.
Oster noted how his beliefs are apparently widespread across the development community. Additionally, his initial message on Twitter wasn’t in-depth due to the site’s character limit. Even though “feedback has mostly been agreement and support about how Nintendo can improve”, Oster has received some backlash.
“I was surprised by the reaction to my comments. What I stated has been said a great deal within the industry, I guess I didn’t get the memo about not posting it publicly. Given the 140 character limit of Twitter and my cranky 3am mindset, my comment was also a pretty choppy sound bite. The feedback has mostly been agreement and support about how Nintendo can improve. But, I now have a few people who randomly appear on the various social networks and troll me.”
Last month, Oster called out Nintendo for its unit sales requirement and file size limitation on WiiWare, going as far as to say that “Wii is a toy, not a console”. He later followed up with a more in-depth explanation of his criticisms, specifying the frustrations he experienced while trying to bring MDK2 to WiiWare.
Oster had at first said he wouldn’t be involved with Nintendo platforms in the future. Since then, he’s softened his stance slightly. Oster may consider working with the Wii U if the console “takes off and a number of independent developers do well on the platform”.
“As an independent developer, we eat what we kill, so our sole experience with Nintendo so far has been no eating. If the Wii U takes off and a number of independent developers do well on the platform we might take another look at it. For now, we’re not going to chase the Wii U platform.”
