Nintendo quietly courts indies without "making a big fuss", devs say

While Sony brandishes its indie pride and Microsoft publicly back pedals on its unfriendly stance, Nintendo isn't getting enough credit for quietly toiling away behind the scenes, according to a couple of indie developers.

In a feature on Edge, four indies had nothing but praise for the big N's policies and practices.

Lau Korsgaard of Spin the Bottle developer Knapnok Games said Sony and Microsoft were both the focus of a lot of attention at E3 for their apparently diametrically opposed approach to indie support.

"Meanwhile Nintendo is just doing the right thing without making a big fuss about it," he said.

"They work on establishing genuine human relationships with the indies. They are working on making their tools easily accessible and free and provide equipment for you and are super encouraging in general."

Ragnar Tørnquist of Dreamfall Chapters developer Red Thread Games agreed, noting that Nintendo is much more approachable than Microsoft.

"I don’t think Nintendo gets enough credit for their indie efforts. There are a lot of intriguing indie titles on the eShop, and they’re obviously passionate about increasing the variety of range of games available," he said.

"They’re still lagging a bit behind Sony in terms of indie support, but I think that has more to do with how closed their hardware has been in the past, rather than a lack of willingness and engagement from their developer relations."

Dakko Dakko and Nyamyam representatives had similar stories to share; hit the link above for more.

Conversely, the platform holder is said not to be accepting indie applications for Wii U from Japanese developers.