Designing for DSiWare is easy, says developer
So where are all the games?
Damien has been chatting with the developer of a fun new DSiWare game focusing on the alien abduction of cows, called Alien Havoc, which is due for release on Nintendo's handheld download service this summer.
According to developer John Manuelian of Creat Studios, the platform is a welcoming and efficient framework on which to build.
"I worked on a few DS games previously, so the jump to DSi was minimal," Manuelian told Pocket Gamer. "There are additional requirements I needed to handle because the game is downloadable. All in all, in my opinion, DSiWare is a pretty easy medium to create content for."
Which leaves us wondering where all the downloadable DS games are. It's a comparison that's cropping up with increased frequency, but the iPhone had 500 games and applications when the device was launched, yet DSiWare seems to be struggling to gain the interest of developers, let alone gamers.
"The service is quite new and of course it will take some time for many games to appear on it," continues Manuelian. "At the same time I think some launch titles like New Super Mario Bros. Mini, 1080 Snowboarding Mini, or some other big name title would have been nice."
It seems there are no real technical barriers holding DS developers back from entering the DSiWare market, suggesting that it's more likely to be poor promotion and/or provision of developer incentives on the part of Nintendo that's actually holding the platform back.
With Sony recently slashing the costs of its development tools to encourage creation of software for its new PSPgo, and the ever increasing amount of iPhone and iPod touch games, Nintendo needs to get behind its platform right now, or face the fate of Nokia's N-Gage.
