PSN or XBLA Considerations

[osirisomeomi]

This game looks very interesting and seems to have a lot of depth.  Have either of the two creators of this game considered releasing this game for the Playstation Network or for XBLA?  It'd make a ton of money there, and both companies (especially PSN) look like they want to support high-quality indie games.  I'd like to see this game in some form on either of those platforms.

I'd like to hear what people think about this.

I read your FAQ, and you said that you might be porting it over at some point, but the idea has me really excited and I'd like to know more about your plans in this direction.

[Alec]

We'd love to do a console version of Aquaria! That would be a dream come true! But its really not up to us.

You can't just decide to release a game on WiiWare or XBLA or PSN... its up to Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to decide if they want the game or not.

As to how those conversations are going... I'm not allowed to talk about it at all.

[KingAl]

Ah ha! You've talked about it enough to be unable to talk about it!

* KingAl returns to reading too much into things.

[Azuu]

Wiiware is cheap (REALLY cheap)
XBL has a lot of ppl on it and the dev kit is 100usd to my knowedge
im not sure about PSN as i have yet to hear about it.


the problem is that they will set the price and that will be cut up. the good thing is, that it will sell better than any internet version sadly enough.

[Kal]

Well, but as with the Valve discussion, if you sell five times as many units but only make half the profit on each, you're still making more money than you would if you didn't go with it.  Personally, I think you'd be better off on a console than through Valve, but the same rules apply.

And...the game looks like it'd make the transition to Wii very easily.

[Alec]

Consoles are a bit different than Valve, because consoles are a market completely separate from PC games.

But yeah, its totally worth doing a console version and I hope we can do one.

[KingAl]

I notice Moonpod just recently passed Wii developer certification.

[Kal]

Consoles are a bit different than Valve, because consoles are a market completely separate from PC games.

But yeah, its totally worth doing a console version and I hope we can do one.

Exactly.  Personally, I think console gamers make up a larger group that PC gamers.  There's no saying that you can't do both, is there?

The way I see it...there will be people out there who don't use Valve or will never hear of Aquaria.  Sad fact.  Out of that large group, a significant portion has access to an online console.  Not everyone, of course not, but a good chunk of it.  Even if you lose some of the profits, it'll still be profits that you wouldn't have gained otherwise.  Again, the various Steam debates going on in the forum come to mind, so I don't think I need to repeat what's already been said...several times before.

In other words, I'm sure you've already thought of it, but trying to put Aquaria out on the console market certainly can't hurt you.  The question is...which console would provide the best support and most accessibility?  I'll leave that to you.

[Azuu]

the more ports the better the profits. XBL and wii(whatever they call it) are the biggest ammounts of consoles sold to date. These also have a good fanbase that like to download content. Shit they buy just about anything once they are done with the game, if diablo II was released on XBL people would buy extra classes and items and even chapters .

[realyst]

Just sayin', if you make a WiiWare port, I will buy this game twice:  once per platform 

[Azuu]

To make it better why not just add extras depending on if you take extra time to get in on a console. Gears of war is doing it in vice versa, and it will give us incentive to buy it again   

[shinygerbil]

Just sayin', if you make a WiiWare port, I will buy this game twice:  once per platform 

Seconded. I'd almost consider it buying it three times if you could get it onto XBLA!

The only good thing about having it on the xbox would be the shiny, super-high-res graphics which my laptop (and the wii) definitely could not produce. Other than that, I bet it's much better with a mouse/pointer than a controller.