Hello all, I have been poking around for a little while now and I'm having a difficult time locating any information on developing games for the Nintendo DS. Does anyone know of a good place to start looking for more data? The websites recommended for DS development in this forums FAQ don't have any content. For reference my end goal is to develop a demo for a publisher, not just for homebrew goodness. Thanks, Joe Piepiora

Quote:Original post by jpiepiora
For reference my end goal is to develop a demo for a publisher, not just for homebrew goodness.

That's not easy to do, sadly. Just to get an idea of what's needed, here is what Nintendo is looking for in order to become an authorized developer.

Edit: Slow, and I fail at html tags [headshake]

Thanks guys, this is some excellent information. I didn't exactly expect to waltz right into a dev-kit, but I can't meet the criteria at present. Perhaps I'll look into this again after my career has matured somewhat.

Again, thank you for the quick links!

Joe Piepiora

Quote:Original post by jpiepiora
For reference my end goal is to develop a demo for a publisher, not just for homebrew goodness.

Why?

Publishers don't want demos. Publishers want products they can publish to consumers and sell for a profit.

This particular question may illustrate my ignorance of the process. The articles I've read seem to indicate that presenting a demo of your product to a publisher in advance is how you secure funding for the duration of the development cycle. After all the legalities of your company, such as the business plan and whatnot have been squared away that is.

If you're asking me why I'd bother trying to secure that money for the development cycle, I suppose it just seems to make more sense from a business standpoint. Operating entirely on start-up money seems dangerous.

Understand of course that I don't have a background in business management. I just perceive some publishing routes as riskier than others.

As ever, I would enjoy any feedback.

I'm part of a student organization that creates games and the group I'm currectly with is in the process of developing a DS game using PALib. I would recommend checking it out.

Quote:Original post by frob

Quote:Original post by jpiepiora
For reference my end goal is to develop a demo for a publisher, not just for homebrew goodness.

Why?

Publishers don't want demos. Publishers want products they can publish to consumers and sell for a profit.

True but demos are great to put on your resume and it allows developers to see your various talents and skills.

Quote:Original post by jpiepiora
This particular question may illustrate my ignorance of the process. The articles I've read seem to indicate that presenting a demo of your product to a publisher in advance is how you secure funding for the duration of the development cycle. After all the legalities of your company, such as the business plan and whatnot have been squared away that is.

That's not a demo, that's a pitched game. As an unknown company with no background an no experienced developers, your pitch has to include a complete game. Even then, you'll be fighting a difficult battle in getting a publisher to give you funding for publishing, marketing, or distributing your game.

Getting a title through Nintendo's lot checks, getting the minimum purchase of cartridges, getting them all burned, labeled, packaged with manuals, and warehoused will run you around $100,000. That's just for a minimum order of a couple thousand boxed cartridges -- your publisher deal would probably require 10x that much. Your publisher will need money to get your product to stores, and you will need to work out money for advertising.

Unless you have money for all that, you're essentially begging for the publisher to loan you the few million dollars required to get all that done.

Is your game completed up to the point that you can get a million dollar loan with it? If it isn't completed up to that point, how much additional money will you need to invest into it before you could get that far?



You are correct about the experience aspect. You need to get some deep industry experience, or have the funding to hire people with that industry experience. As a group you should be able to produce something that could get published. Also as a group, it would be easier to convince a publisher that you won't fail, meaning there is a better chance they would be willing to front you a little money for publishing, marketing, and distributing. It is easier to get the million or two for startup funds, but still very difficult.

[Edited by - frob on December 4, 2007 4:05:50 PM]