We're looking for new writers to join us!

Nintendo partnering with Unity to court indie developers

by: Jeff - posted: 3/13/2014 6:37:00 PM
More On: GDC Nintendo Wii U

Next week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Nintendo will reveal their two pronged approach to expanding their library of indie games. First, they'll be showing off their Nintendo Web Framework development tool, and a new game demo that was made with elements from Mario vs. Donkey Kong. NWF promises to be a full-featured, user-friendly tool that will make developing games for the Wii U as simple and accessible as possible.

Nintendo is also trying to get rid of financial obstacles for small indie studios, so they've partnered with Unity, one of the most popular tools for indie developers. Authorized Wii U developers will be able to get a license that lets them develop with Unity Pro for the Wii U for free- so they won't have to worry about any license fees or end-user license fees. Steve Singer, the VP of Licensing at Nintendo of America had this to say:

"We want to demonstrate to developers how easy it is for them to bring their creative ideas to Nintendo systems...Nintendo offers wide-ranging support for indie developers, whether they want to use NWF, Unity or their own proprietary code."

If you're going to be at the GDC next week, Dan Adelman the manager of Business Development at Nintendo of America, will be at the Unity booth (No. 1402) on Thursday, March 20 from 10:45- 11:15 AM, showing the entire process of releasing games in the Nintendo eShop.

If you stop by the Nintendo booth at GDC, you'll be able to play these Unity-developed games on the Wii U:

If you want to learn more about Nintendo's efforts to hop on the indie train, you should check out Sean's other articles about Nintendo's indie releases so far, and the indie section of their eShop.