"[royalty payout milestones] were not a major problem compared to other issues, like lack of demo versions and storage space problems."

That's an interesting statement - as I remember, Nintendo claimed at the WiiWare launch that developers were free to create demos for their games, but that none (at the time) had chosen to go down this route. Was this just an official white-lie? Are Nintendo actively barring demos?

(I can certainly see one obvious reason for Nintendo dissuading the use of demos: users would be more likely to come up against the 512mb storage limit which existed prior to the SDHC patch)

Thinking about it, has Nintendo ever authorised the use of demos? It obviously wasn't an option in the cartridge era (though I do have an unlicenced GBC game which was included with a UK magazine), but it should have been viable for both the GC and Wii (and now the DSi). One thing I always notice when browsing game magazines is that the Nintendo magazines generally offer toys and posters, whereas the PC, PS3 and X360 magazines will generally offer DVDs with demos and other content. The few times I have seen disks on Nintendo game magazines, they only offered gameplay videos.

I can only wish the best for the developers who are working hard to make their WiiWare software profitable. (In this economy, I do not know many independent developers who could spend months working on a project, only not to be paid for their efforts and then not be financially burdened.) I hope this is not as big a problem as it would seem.

@Jake: From what's been written above, it sounds as if the problem isn't lack of payment, it's the lack of a clear timeline for the payment - i.e. do you get paid in one month, three months or six months? There's no real way to know this prior to releasing the game (unless Nintendo gives developers access to past trends - it'd be useful to know the average first-month figures and the long-tale sales curve), which means that you can't guarantee to have any finance available to produce your next release.

Now that a more solid number is available, would it really be that hard to break that? 6000 copies sold out of the 50 Million Wii owners? The only way to botch that is to make a really bad game or something so obscure that people are apprehensive about buying it without the ability to try before hand.

I agree that demos would certainly cure the problem of not making that. For most developers at least. But that all depends on if Nintendo allows demos. Last I heard, they were the road block to that.

Ephraim, as soon as you get into the "people who look for indie stuff to buy online and download and play" demographic, I bet the audience shrinks a lot. People who just got the Wii for Wii Fit or Wii Sports might not even look at WiiWare. Actually, they might have bought the thing and just let it collect dust. I think that there was some Nielsen data recently that showed that Wiis get less use time per-console than 360s or PS3s. Not surprising, though, since it's a "casual" system, which means users don't play for two hours every night. I just think that you're oversimplifying the user base when you look only at the number of Wiis sold, and are missing an important aspect about the nature of the people who own it and the way that they play.

@Bob McIntyre Again with this anti-wii blah blah blah? There was said report about Wii usage, that has been corrected in the other day as the Wii being the most played between all the current-gen systems.

Regarding the news, I agree with Ephriam. Those numbers do not look that high. And most of the games developed on the wiiware that are not from large established publishers usually have a version available for the PC as well. If it is not hard (or expensive) to port the game to the Wii or X360 or PS3, than why not? I'm not familiar with the restrictions on the PS3 or X360, but this one on the Wii does not look that bad at all - although I have not worked with it myself so far.

The numbers don't seem to high, but if XBL Community Games are any indication, it may be a lot more difficult to get to those numbers than you would think. Of course those are different markets so making a straight comparison is difficult.

Either way, I'm calling Shenanigans.

Nintendo should change this policy sooner rather than later. They're already fighting an uphill battle to compete with Live and the Playstation Store, chasing off indies with this nonsense is certainly not going to help.

Eric, I guess it depends on the actual hurdles to becoming a developer for these services. I certainly don't know exactly what it takes to become a developer for the three download services, so I can't really judge. I only know what is available at each companies' developer sites.

Sony and Microsoft are pretty tight lipped about what it takes until you actively start the licensing reqest process. Nintendo is the only one that is really up front about their requirements. So at least you have some disclosure from them even though not everything is disclosed beforehand, obviously.