Devolver Digital co-founder says Nintendo fans more open to "interesting concepts and gameplay"
Time to path ourselves on the back
Devolver Digital is one of the biggest indie publishers out there, and they’ve got a serious collection of hits under their belt. If there’s any studio out there that knows indie gaming and has their fingers on the pulse of indie fans, it would be Devolver.
In a recent interview with Games Industry, Devolver Digital co-founder Nigel Lowrie says he’s heard about indies skipping the Xbox and PlayStation side of things with their efforts, and it’s all because those audiences don’t seem to be all that interested in what indies are offering. According to Lowrie, the situation is quite different with Nintendo.
**“They’ve (Nintendo) created an ecosystem – and therefore a user base – that is really open to interesting concepts and gameplay ideas. The PlayStation and Xbox user, for as long as I’ve been doing this… there’s a lot of people that still like indie games, don’t get me wrong. Cult of the Lamb has done very well on those platforms. But I think the large majority of those people buy those platforms to show off what they can really do. They’re looking at Destiny. They’re looking at Helldivers. They’re looking at Starfield. They definitely push those.
I think the platforms themselves all are really strong believers in indie games. They really do push them. I think on the other end, the consumers – as big as they might be – there’s still a smaller portion than we would like on Xbox and PlayStation that are open to looking at a pixel art platformer and going, ‘I’ll give this a shot.’“**
It’s wild to think that Nintendo sits at the forefront of indie gaming nowadays, at least when it comes to consoles. Nintendo started this push back in the Wii days, and they’ve only grown efforts since. Now indies are a huge part of Nintendo’s gaming catalog, and it’s clear Nintendo fans are just as engaged with that side of the industry.
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styster
11d agonintendo fans: we built different
joeshabadoo
11d agoWe spent so long in the desert that we slake our thirst as often as we can. Now if we can just get that new machine that never needs to make performance compromises…
the schaef
11d agoThe Switch has been a treasure trove for small and mid-level indie games. Their virtual console continues to get worse with every new console but Duck Game was the best seven bucks I ever dropped for my kids' sake. Add to that Minecraft, Terraria, Shovel Knight, Cuphead, Tunic, Among Us, the Supergiant titles, Stardew Valley, Undertale, Ori, Spiritfarer, Golf Story, Xeodrifter, Gato Roboto, all the Steam World titles, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Unravel, Guacamelee...
I'd almost say we spend more time playing the indie games than the first party titles, but looking at the top titles by play time, yes there's Fortnite and Minecraft, but there's also Mario Maker 2, Smash, Miitopia, both the Zelda titles, and Metroid Dredd. So this generation has been the best of both worlds.
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