Well said

Well said.

* Ahmad stated on Twitter that the comments by Mahler were, “Quite an uninformed and immature rant, lacking any real understanding or professionalism.”

* When told that such blow-outs are the reason why secrecy exists in the first place, Ahmad responded that there’s still a lot up in the air with such products. “The secrecy is because it’s a commercial product in development and will undergo rapid changes in concert with devs.”

* He also stated that there have been cases where dev kits were handed out before launch with the PlayStation 4. “At PS, we loaned out a lot of kits pre-launch to a lot of devs. Obviously coming out with such nonsense won’t help with trust.”

* Business development manager at Microsoft Studios Phil Waymouth said he was envious that Ahmad was in a position to comment on this issue, to which the latter responded, “Former PlayStation guy supporting Nintendo against unprofessional rant gets tacit support from Microsoft guy.”

* It may sound like Ahmad is being harsh but he denies as much. “No I’m not harsh at all and you don’t have the full picture,” he said to another user. Which is pretty much a good point when no one really has any information on what the NX is, Nintendo’s dealings with developers for the platform, launch plans, etc.

* All good points. That director/developer sounds like a whiney entitled spoiled brat who can't get whatever he wants.

Very unprofessional, and now he has outed himself as somebody not to be trusted in the gaming industry.

Yeah but going by Nintendo's history with the Wii and Wii U to people really expect them to do a 180 and all of a sudden cater for the hardcore instead of focusing on gimmicks.

Maybe that was the ultimate goal in the end.

Historically, if you really go dig deep into it, leaks tend to come from smaller devs with less attachment to the industry than the bigger devs. This is likely due to the bigger devs often having a handler in interviews, so they don't inadvertantly say something they aren't supposed to. More often than not, the leaks aren't intentional or malicious, but picked up on by the interviewer, and an good interviewer can often get information that a person never intended to speak of. Obviously, devs get excited over working on new things, and human nature just makes people want to talk about such things.

It's not that I feel that these smaller devs do anything wrong or malicious or intentional, just that Nintendo, and other companies are aware of this kind of thing, so tend to protect their interests until the time is right.

In any case, where the NX is probably in development for the time being, there is little reason for most devs to have a dev kit. Even bigger ones. Without proper engine support, there is likely not much an indie dev would be able to do with it, which is why the big publishers and engine makers get first choice on getting the dev kits, because that is much more important to have those engines ready for after the reveal, and the bulk of indie devs are likely only to be doing ports anyways, which could be done rather quickly once the engines are updated.

My thing about leaking information is who cares.

I entirely get what Ahmad is saying, but that would have been a big deal if Nintendo was launching the NX at the same time as the PS4 and XBO, so the competition wouldn't be able to get a 1up over them, like Sony did with the PS4 over the XBO's hardware.

But Nintendo isn't launching a console against anyone. It's 3 years laters Sony and MS already have consoles out, and in their eyes Nintendo is not their direct competitor anymore so what is Nintendo gaining by being so secretive for. If Nintendo wants the NX to hit the ground running then they need to launch with quality hardware, a quality price, and most importantly quality games Day 1 and well into and beyond the launch window.

The rant from the Ori dev. was unprofessional, but the complaints were valid. Nintendo could at the very least give devs moch-up specs, so games can already be in the process of being made. And if they change so what, it's better and easier to scale a game up or down to modified hardware over a year, then to rush a game from scratch to launch with less than a year of dev time. And giving them moch-up specs ensures that there won't be a dry spell after the launch window as long as devs are willing to continue working on NX.

Being so secretive and relying on the big devs only means most of the launch games are going to be ports, or mediocre (ZombiU type games). Neither of which are a reason to buy a NX when PS4 / XBO will have those same port (with at least 45m PS4 / 25m...30m if they launch the slim, by holiday 2016).

Nintendo's needs to be speaking with the majority of Japanese developers ASAP, because JP support is one of the regions they can get any kind of 3rd party parity in, and if the NX can get Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Street Fighter 6, Metal Gear, and more then they don't have anything to worry about when it comes to maximizing sales in JP.

The west; however, has proven multiple generations now that they don't really care about Nintendo if they're not making money (which I can understand). So instead of going after the same group of people who support you at launch which as fans claim are "inferior ports" then leave Nintendo out to die, go to these indies studios and pay them to make exclusives of your unused IP's (F-Zero, Mario RPG, Earthbound, etc...), historic IP's if you can get the license (Crusin' the World, Wave Race, etc..), and how a console with so many exclusives that it's a must have product.

Waiting on EA, Activision, Bethesda, Rockstar, and all the other big 3rd parties to get on board is a wasteful decision IMO, they haven't given 100% to Nintendo is over a decade. If you can prove that they can make money on the platform then they'll come back with full support instead of crappy launch support, and that best done by making sure JP games are successful from JP 3rd parties, and that indie devs can find success on your platform from recreating 1st party games, or their very own projects.

Ahmad is right in his presentation, but he forgets, the PS4's entire success came from the fact that Sony was so open about almost everything (waited a while for the online only and DRM stuff to ruin XBO). Every time they showed PS4 it was always demonstrated as pro-developer, easy to develop for, "PRO-INDIE", and pro gamer, and the PS4 took off like a rocket.

Nintendo needs to be doing the same thing. Developers and Your fans are the most important people to the success of your console, because developers are the ones making software to keep your console alive, and fans are the ones spending money to buy the hardware and software keeping your company alive.

it's cookin lol

I do envy pc players sometimes because of the early access. For this game especially.

Anyway, consoles will get the definitive version in the end so all good.

its an independent studio that is not owned by any big studio or publisher. what else would you call them?

Game development expenditures have exploded since the old days, Terry. Office space, hiring computer techs, game development equipment and art direction all have insane costs now.

Regardless the expenses are still there. If every indie studio had a success like Stardew Valley, they wouldn't be begging big time publishers, crowdfunders and investors to cover development costs. Alas most don't.

CEO makes CEO noises.

If he takes a 1 million dollar bonus every year the game is being made and the game took 5 years to be made, the "cost" isn't 10 million, it should be 5 million.

It's just more magical accounting. This industry is replete with it.

@Santouryuu
Yeah, it's weird. On top of that, he subtracts engine, tax from HIS own money, but this should be put on the publisher (or at least be split, 50%/50% or how they agree), because they're benefitting from the sales as well. On top of that, he makes it look like he didn't get a cent, but he (and his team) was paid the salary the whole way through, with bonuses and stuff. Probably rent for the office was taken care of as well and licenses/devices too.

And also, he acts like his games' average price was $10 (by the way, if the game cost $10 million, who decided to sell it for $20?! Sounds idiotic), which is ridiculous, popular indie games don't do 50% discount right after release and the most of the sales are done a few months after release (according to the publishers). As an example, look at Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, Factorio, Kenshi, they either didn't have 50% discount yet or had it years after the release.

Also, he acts like the game was only sold on Steam, but that's false. And Microsoft, i'm more than sure, didn't take 30% from them (because it's a game published by them on their platform).

The only thing this tells me is that someone is trying to manipulate us and you shouldn't work with Microsoft if you want to remain sane.

Its not the cost of storefront. Your game made 20million but from those 20million the store takes 30%. Steam took 30% from the 20million you made. got it?
If you make 20million in sales Steam takes 6 million.
So you only get 14millions. Then you have to pay back what you owe the publisher, so 10millions in devcost and 2million in marketing.
So you are left with 2millions.
From the 2millions of pure profit 70% goes to the publisher and 30% to the developer (depending on your contract)
So you are left with 600k to pay for your next game, for now.
lots of numbers but very clearly put

absolutely correct.
He is pointing out the fact that even IF you have a hit game that sells 2million dollars. Does not mean you can pay for the next project.

It doesn't even have to be an Ori game it can just be similar. I want them to make a side stroller combat game. Kinda like super smash bros but with ori playstyle

if you like arpgs, but wasn't a big fan of screenclearing attacks, this is a really fun game. It's sort of diablo meets dark souls.

I personally got bored of Ori after a while. The pinballing got old for me.

Majority of the criticism is on the time-gating they utilize in the game that makes it feel like a mobile game. I think his making it out to be just people who leave a thumbs down review without effort isn't really why people are leaving bad reviews. If you read through them, they really hate having timers on so much considering building them in the first place requires you to collect materials to make them, which should be the 'time' you spend and not just waiting for it to finish being constructed.