Lost Winds “validates” development process, says Frontier Developments boss
Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 10:16am by Jack
Frontier Developments had something short, but special, on their hands when they launched Lost Winds via Nintendo’s WiiWare service last month. It received mostly critical acclaim, numerous downloads, and is currently the number one WiiWare download in Europe. As Frontier boss David Braben sees it, the game provides evidence that the development process it came out of is constructive.
What Braben refers to in the Game Industry article is the internal development process at Frontier, but I’d take it a step further, and say that Lost Winds validates Nintendo’s spin that WiiWare could be something different on the digi-distro scene.
The “different” part is a relatively hands-off approach from Nintendo with higher profit for developers. In Frontier’s case, this meant they could continue to implement their “Game of the Week” spin cycle game development process, wherein the entire company picked and poked at various game ideas until the best of them floated to the surface. We got Lost Winds, and they got a hit on their hands. Oh, and some cash in hand for Lost Winds 2, too.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:26 am
“Digi-Distro”?!?!?!?!!??!?!?!??!?!
Congrats on coining the greatest new abbreviation since Wiimote!!!
June 20th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I love this game. It’s as good as I had hoped.
It’s good to see great companies like Frontier developing gold for he WIi, since other developers like UbiSoft only know how to shit all over it.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:47 am
The game was VERY good, but I share the common criticizm that it was pretty short. But I’m patient enough to wait for LostWinds 2.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Lost Winds rocks. It sets an excellent precedent for all WiiWare developers.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
All companies should take a look at what Frontier did. Companies are always whining that their games never sell as well on the Wii. But all they do is either 1. Make crap games to start, or 2. Try to make a game that somehow copies a Nintendo game in style. Which never works so they start complaining that being a third party on the big N’s system is not cost effective. Well stop making Pony Princess Magic and come up with something worthwhile. and stop remaking old games from ps2 and trying to lazily put them on the wii with no motion control. Most of us have ps2s, we dont need another Buck Hunter!
June 20th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Really nice game, but i prefer Toki Tori
June 20th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
i gotta tell you guys, i don’t think a third party success on wii ware is at all similar to a third party success as a regular wii game - people are willing to shell out 5 or 8 dollars for a game they’re not sure they’ll like but they heard good things about and not so willing when the price is $50. i think lost winds sets a great precedent for wii ware games, but not so much for traditional disc-based games.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Yeah i can agree, i am more likely to pay $10 for a game than $50. and if its not that great, i can say “hey, it was only $10″