WiiWare sales targets exposed
Royalties beyond 6,000 sales in USA
Kotaku have this week learned of the sales targets WiiWare titles must hit in order to make a profit on Nintendo's WiiWare platform, Nintendo only paying developer royalties once certain targets are achieved.
In North America, games over 16Mb need to sell 6,000 copies before royalties begin, or 4,000 copies if they're under 16Mb.
In Europe, the targets are a little more generous. 3,000 units over 16Mb, 2,000 units under.
After this point, developers get to keep 65 per cent of the revenue derived from their creations.
Update: Nintendo's WiiWare structure has been clarified further this week, Eurogamer.net quoting an unnamed source:
"The spirit of the threshold was never to screw the developer - it was, as far as I can tell, a quality control mechanism to prevent the service from getting overrun with a bunch of crappy games.
"Once the threshold is crossed, the developer is retroactively paid for every single unit sold below the threshold. I know there has been confusion on that point in the past."
