Report: WiiWare Sales Thresholds Also Variant On File Size

Apparently, whether WiiWare developers get paid or not also depends on the ratio of file size to units sold -- that's according to new information emerging, following Gamasutra's report that poorly-selling independent games may never see any revenue from Nintendo's service. Consumer weblog Kotaku now reports specifics of the targets developers must meet in order to see profits on their WiiWare games. In North America, titles over 16MB reportedly must sell over 6,000 units before developers may receive a return, while the target for titles under 16MB is 4,000. It's reportedly slightly different in Europe, where the target for titles over the 16MB threshold is 3,000 units and 2,000 units for titles under it. Kotaku also claims that developers have 2 years to make these minimum thresholds, and when they are surpassed, the percentage royalty rate is 65/35 in favor of the developer. Nonetheless, until a WiiWare title sells over the target number for its size, nothing will be paid out -- although when the threshold is made, the full royalty amount is given to the developer, taking into account the amount of copies sold at that figure. Gamasutra has spoken off the record to multiple developers who have acknowledged the limit, and at least one small independent studio whose staff believes they will never reach the minimum sales threshold to be paid anything for their WiiWare title. However, the majority of WiiWare developers questioned by Gamasutra indicated that they had indeed surpassed the minimum sales numbers -- even if only marginally -- and that these were not a major problem compared to other issues, like lack of demo versions and storage space problems. With the recent increase in Wii storage space resulting in sales boosts for titles like Telltale's Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, the latter of these may have been ameliorated.