Former Nintendo eShop Head Talks About Nintendo’s Indie Policies On Switch

Dan Adelman, who was the former head of digital content at Nintendo of America. has recently participated in a question and answer session on Reset Era. Adelman had previously expressed some frustrations with Nintendo’s indie policies on the Switch. He explains why he felt frustrated and has also explained that he’s buried the hatchet with some of his former colleagues. This is what he had to say:

“Nintendo had two inconsistent policies that I think in retrospect made life very confusing and frustrating for a lot of people,” Adelman wrote as an answer to the question. “The first policy was that they were only approving developers who were interested in bringing games that had never released on another system before. The second was that once a developer was approved, that developer could bring whatever game they wanted to the system – including their entire back catalog from other systems.

“As a result, there was a mismatch between the rationale we were given for not being approved – because Axiom Verge had already released on other platforms – and what we were seeing on the eShop, which was lots of ports from other systems. It was especially frustrating since we had been asking for access to dev kits more than a year before the system’s launch, and I told them that I knew from experience that they’d have a period after launch where they’d be starved for content. Sure enough, there was a long stretch in those first few months after launch where there were lots of new Switch owners but no new games, which would have been a perfect opportunity for Axiom Verge.

“I’m a pretty vocal and passionate guy, so I let my frustrations known in ways that may have been less than productive. (I guess I can be a bit of a Walter Sobchak.) I’ve since sat down with some of my former colleagues and buried the hatchet, so I think we’re all good now.”

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