Nintendo finally has opened the lock on the Wii U‘s indie offerings in a video today, showcasing 18 different games coming to the console from European and Australian developers.
The biggest names in the industry are of the opinion that indie developers will define the future of their business.
“More important than indie games are the developers who make them,” said PlayStation Europe’s senior business development manager Shahid Ahmad. “They’re the story just as much as their games are. We love their work and we appreciate them as friends.
“We’ve never seen such an explosion of creativity in our industry, not even in the 8-bit days. This is the most exciting era in the history of video games.
“As a company, PlayStation has always got behind creativity, and now that we’re in the midst of a Cambrian Explosion of development, we’ve just responded to that and stepped up our engagement. Lowering barriers doesn’t just allow more people in, it lets us step out and meet people on their ground, to understand their environment and challenges.”
Ahmad added: “This is a disruptive time and the future of games is being decided in this space. The triple-A games of the future, and the not-too-distant future at that, will be created by some of the developers we’re working with today.”
Nintendo of Europe’s product development and game evaluation manager Tim Symons added: “Indies have been able to make their content available on Nintendo platforms since the first day of WiiWare, without the need for an intermediary publisher between the developer and Nintendo. That’s more than five years now.
“With Wii U, Nintendo is further improving in various aspects to allow access to Wii U software development for indies as well as small development studios. Both Nintendo Web Framework and Unity makes the platform more accessible from a technical standpoint, so we hope that many more developers become involved with Wii U software development.
“In supporting indies and small development studios we hope to increase the number of new Wii U developers who haven’t worked with Nintendo before, resulting in new types of software. We think it is very important for the success of our platforms to have varied game experiences to offer something for everybody in the family.”
Here’s a list of games that are scheduled for a launch:
Cubemen 2 by Nnooo,
Festival of Magic by Snowcastle Games
Forced by BetaDwarf
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams by Black Forest Games
Ittle Dew by Ludosity
Knytt Underground by Ripstone
March of War by Isotx
Monkey Pirates by Henchmen Studio
Nihilumbra by BeautiFun Games
Pure Chess by Ripstone
Q.U.B.E. Director’s Cut by Toxic Games
Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails by Dakko Dakko
So Hungry by Xiotex Studios
Squids Deluxe by The Game Bakers
Tengami by Nyamyam
Teslagrad by Rain AS
TNT Racers by Keen Games
Wooden Sen’sey by Upper Byte