One of the big announcements out of Gamescom was Sony's Minis line for the PSP Go, bite-sized downloadable games clearly meant to scratch the quick-gaming itch the way Apple does so well with the iPhone. For once, Nintendo seems to be viewing a Sony move as an actual threat to its handheld dominance. Nintendo is moving to restructure royalty rates for DSiWare, to encourage more indie devs to generate more original content for the system.
Unfortunately, the new program won't address how badly overpriced DSiWare titles are compared to iPhone and the PSP Minis line. Prices for DSiWare games will remain steady at 200, 500, and 900 points. What's interesting is that the new Nintendo program is designed to reward developers who create smaller games, under 20MB, that can be sold in the 200 point range. Essentially, Nintendo is moving to reward indie devs for making more iPhone-like content for the DSi.
This is nothing but good news for DSi owners, who haven't had much of note out of the DSiWare line beyond Gameloft's solid but unspectacular ports and Nintendo's own Art Style line. The question is if any indie devs will be willing to bite, even with more favorable royalty rates. Right now the iPhone market is frankly much larger than the DSiWare market, since American consumers aren't snapping up DSis as quickly as their Japanese counterparts.
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