Two Tribes and Wii U = a match made in heaven?

If you ask the average WiiWare developer how much money they made off the back of the service, you'd probably be shocked. In the past, indie devs have been less than positive about Nintendo's online portal, providing figures which make for very grim reading - even more so when you consider that they have to meet a minimum sales target before they see any financial return on their hard work.

Thankfully, it would seem that Nintendo has turned the corner with regards to "garage" development teams. Speaking to Not Enough Shaders, several small-scale studios have praised the company's approach on Wii U - as well as revealing several interesting points.

The issue of revenue cropped up several times, as it's something of a touchy subject. However, most of the developers interviewed said that Nintendo's cut is around the same as what Apple and Steam demand on their services.

Another comment made is that Nintendo is very easy to work with, and appears to have learned from its previous mistakes. Toki Tori 2 developer Two Tribes' Collin Van Ginkel had this to say:

We have been very vocal towards Nintendo from the early days of WiiWare about what we thought of the shop. It wasn’t always pretty and I think we can all agree that it hasn’t been the success it could have been. Since then we’ve been talking to them on a regular basis and I personally think they’ve done a lot of listening.

Mention was also made of the significance of the recent Unity deal, with Infinite State Games and AckkStudios both making positive noises about supporting Wii U as a result of the agreement.

Be sure to check out the entire interview, as it makes very optimistic reading for those of you hoping that indie developers will be a big part of the Wii U story.

[source notenoughshaders.com]