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In the last few years, indie game development has become more and more prominent. With the explosive success of Kickstarter, it’s easier than ever for new developers to fund the exact projects an audience wants to see. While Nintendo has embraced these new and upcoming developers, it seems that they have placed some interesting restrictions on which ones they’re willing to accept applications from. Namely, developers in their home country.
According to a Wii U developer application form, Nintendo states that “we are not accepting applications from developers located in Japan at this time.” That doesn’t mean that Nintendo won’t make a change to the policy in the future, but it is quite curious as to why the exclusion exists in the first place. CVG contacted Nintendo in hopes of getting some clarification, but the response didn’t offer much help in that regard.
“The policy in question is the decision of Nintendo’s department responsible for licensing activities in each region, and the licensing department of Nintendo is currently not accepting subject applications from individuals in Japan.”
As always, stay tuned to Nintendojo where we’ll have more information as it develops.
Source: CVG
Probably cause they have major developer support in Japan, so they’re focusing as much attention as possible on those relationships. While in the West they have less support from major developers so they want to get all the upcoming developers to their side.