Appologies for the AP, but it might be a good idea to bone up on a bit of history in this area. Particularly in regards to Nintendo v. Tengen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengen_%28company%29

Quote:Well, from what I've read on distributing Nintendo games, and really all that 5000$USD License does is force you to make a game that has overly high goals. It does not even put the game on any shelves or advertise it (you still have to do that yourself).

Generally that's the publisher's job, yes.

Quote:
A little hard for us indy developers to do, ya think?

Of course. It's not meant to be easy. Console manufacturers have an interest in ensuring that the games released for their platforms are of a certain quality; poor quality reflects on them more than the developer of the game; Jane User buying little Jimmy a video game for his birthday has trouble even understanding that the PSP and the DS are made by entirely different entities, let alone who makes the games. If Jimmy hates the game, that will translate to dislike of Nintendo (or Sony, or whoever) by Jane.

The same thing happens in the PC world, though not with the hardware but with the OS. Developers may mis-use some feature of the API, which translates to a buggy program, which will more often than not be blamed on Microsoft (say), rather than the developer of the software (sometimes even the developer will blame Microsoft, not realizing that he's used an API incorrectly).

Hobby developers are not supposed to develop for consoles; that's why the barrier to entry is less the price of the kit and the licensing and more the approval process of obtaining the license -- say you if you could afford it, you'd get it, but just because you have the cash doesn't mean you'll get the license. They are not retail products.

Quote:
Game Genie and Game Shark. Two things that, I am sure, if Nintendo had the power, would be off the market (otherwise they most likely would be Nintendo licensed).

Game Genie sales were temporarily halted in the US during the ensuing legal battle with Nintendo; as Obscure pointed out, you'd most likely still have to fight Nintendo. Whether or not you won, you'd pay out the nose and it is highly unlikely you'd ever make enough money from the sale of your unlicensed games to turn a profit.

Quote:
Then sell it on E-bay. Simple, right?

I think that eBay would pull your auctions, especially once you started having a lot of them. I really doubt they'd want to get themselves caught up in the legal imbroglio and would consequently "do the right thing" by pulling the auctions until the matter was resolved.

Quote:
Which would actually lose Nintendo on hardware sales.

How do you figure? Whatever profit -- if any -- they see from dev kit fees are likely to be pretty small. And your game(s) won't be impressive enough to actually move hardware for.

Quote:
While Nintendo's Approval has been shown as not needed,

Some people may have done it, but they've paid for it. You would have to as well. You'd probably have to start by hiring a good lawyer to go over the actual legal implications of everything you think is a legal defense. Because you're not a lawyer, and trying to craft legal defenses via logic tends not to hold up in court. What the law deems neccessary don't always jive with one persons concept of "logical."

Quote:Original post by DakeDesu

Quote:Original post by Obscure
However making a cart which requires Nintendo copyright code to run on their hardware wouldn't.

This line here makes me suspect the post is bullcrap. What "Nintendo copyright code" is required to run on their hardware? Other than the code that there is already a legal precendance to use without Nintendo permission thanks to Acclaim?

As per "how do you not include Nintendo's name when selling it": Simple. Say, "not licensed by Nintendo".

Other than that line about copyright code, and somehow managing to say it is for a Nintendo product, I am not sure where the lawsuit would be. If it is as glaringly obvious as you guys seem to be stating it, it is not obvious to me.

Then you really shouldn't trying to develop for consoles, as you are totally ignorant of how they work. Games contain specific bootcode to start up. That bootcode is checked by the console hardware to see if it is legitimate. The only bootcode marked legitmate by the hardware happens to be copyrighted.

You also really need to bone up on your console history. The ability for any smuck with some captial to put out a game for someones console was one of the key causes of the 1983 video game industry crash. The home video game industry remained dead for 2 years until Nintendo and their "seal of quality" came in an resurrected it.

Controlling the quality (and to a degree, the quantity) of games is a key factor in the success of the console industry. It's had 20 years to make a framework that ensures only approved games can legally be sold, and while some companies may loosen their standards (Sony seems to be getting quite loose with certain quality control standards with the PSP, and during the time the Saturn was crashing Sega was desperately ok'ing almost anything from approved developers) it will be a cold day in hell before they let any smuck with a C++ compiler put a game for their console on store shelves (outside of Hong Kong).

If you really want to develop for consoles you should be looking at:

XNA and Live Arcade - at some point in the future Microsoft will likely have a process where by you can develop for the PC, then approach Microsoft about publishing that same game on Live Arcade. The game will still need to be approved (which means it must pass Microsoft QA), but its likely there will be a path whereby you can get a "development kit" for $99 a year, the only restriction being you won't be an official developer (and thus there will likely be legal restrictions that say you can't claim you are an XBox 360 developer or otherwise advertise an association with Microsoft products until the final game is actually approved)

Wii Connect24 - Nintendo's plans are currently unknown, but there are suggestions that Nintendo might offer "user created content", in the form of mini games made in a sandbox environment (the above XNA is also sandboxed). It's also likely the case that Nintendo is lowering the bar in terms of financial outlay - while they still won't let any 16 year old like you make games, they will let in smaller companies so long as they can show promise. A key benefit of the Wii to developers is that it promises to cost much less to develop a game for it then the $10 million+ you are looking at to develop an XBox 360 or PS3 title.

Homebrew - you can't sell it, but you can still make something for the GBA, either to present to a publisher who is accepted by Nintendo, or as a portfolio piece to getting a job with a respectable studio.

I'm not a lawyer but since nobody's mentioned it yet it's possible that the DMCA (and now similar laws in Europe) make the legal scene worse than it was back when Game Genie etc. beat Nintendo. Under these laws you aren't allowed to chip consoles to take unofficial CDs (pirated or not, doesn't matter), so you might well be breaking them as well.