Wii Development Kits Under $1,800

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has confirmed that third party support is certainly a priority for Wii's success. Often the cost of a development kit, the hardware required to create games, would waver a developer to swing towards a certain platform. We already know the Wii architecture is a natural progression of the Gamecube hardware and allows existing Gamecube developers to easily migrate their projects to Wii.

Nintendo have now stated that development kits will be available to third parties for as little as $1,732; compare that to the $20,000 price tag of a PS3 development kit. Iwata also reiterated that first party support would also be improved.

"Internally Nintendo has big plans for Wii support. In fact, Iwata expects the company's research and development budget to rise with the impending launch of the console. This is because Nintendo intends on having a steady supply of software for Wii in order to avoid the drought faced by GameCube in its first year of release."

This comes as great news to Nintendo enthusiasts, the Japanese giants seem to be creating a platform for everyone rather than simply meeting their own requirements.

All we need now is an open SDK for the virtual console system and a global community of developers, we all want to be a part of the Wii dream.