Nintendo Attracts Developers With Free Wii U Game Updates And Other Perks

I honestly never understood why the hell M$ and Sony charge so much to fix up their games...after all its in their best damn interest for the games on their systems to run as smoothly and rage-free as possible... its like having a publicly available soda machine in your backyard and charging the repairman for coming to fix it up...

I believe it's more of a "maintenance fee" than anything. Take bandwidth, and storage into mind. MS and Sony are using their servers for the data. I'm sure if the devs hosted the data, it would be a significant cost for them.

This doesn't bode well for Nintendo... They're taking a loss on the Wii U, and now they are losing money on this... Hmm

You also have to think about it this way: For a game developer that wants to update their console game with a minor bug fix, they still have to sit through certification processes and pay for the fees to upload the new data, which is not cheap. Updates for console games have been painfully slow because of this and it is also why some games never get fixed. Look at Payday the Heist for example. The PC version has one free DLC, lots of bug fixes, and new updates that stomped out lots of the bugs and exploits. The PS3 version has none of that and Overkill Software is waiting for a good time to roll out all the patches as one for the PS3 so that they don't have to keep paying multiple updates. This is partly why many people say PC > Consoles.


With Nintendo telling developers that they won't charge them to upload content or patches, Wii U games can have more fleshed out content and have quicker fixes rather than see a game get tarnished by an exploit that will never be fixed.

This is fantastic. It's why some games just die to the wind cuz dev's can't afford/choose not to update. Dungeon Defenders comes to mind on this. The PC version is lightyears ahead of the xbla version.

Isn't that kind of dangerous for Nintendo? There has to be some kind of cost associated with software patches and updates. Or Sony and MS are bigger assclowns than I thought.

I'm sure this'll turn a profit in the long run.

Look at it this way, Monday Night Combat debuted on XBLA for $15. If 5 people bought it, that's $75 right? But over the months, the game started having tons of issues, but the patches never came due to the price & the whole certification process. Once the PC version came out, there was no hope for the XBLA version, because the updates were very quick. So maybe you only have a Xbox, and you're looking for a nice XBLA and you see MNC, but everyone tells you that it's broken and doesn't have any of the DLC the PC version has, are you still gonna buy it?

So yeah, patches are free, but you'll also be selling a more stable product, which is ultimately more enticing than an ok game that needs some patchwork. I'm not good at explaining things, so yeah...lol

There are server and bandwidth costs when it comes to those downloadable patches, so it's not like Sony and MS put in the charges for no reason. I think Nintendo is gambling that the long term benefits will outweigh the costs. And anyway, they're pretty flush with money after the massive sales of the Wii and DS, so it's probably not as big a gamble as it looks.