So if I write some console APIs in my niche language (say, Haskell) and get that language building for said console..I can't share it with anyone? Or can I share it so long as the sharee also is NDA'd? (e.g. have a public stub repo where people with credentials can get free access to the private repo per NDA)

Remember that NDA stands for "Non Disclosure Agreement". That agreement could say anything. If you sign the agreement, then you are bound to it (assuming the agreement is legal). If you don't sign the agreement, then you aren't bound by it. If you manage to get your API working on a console without needing any help from the console producer, then there is no reason to sign an NDA. However, in many countries reverse engineering (even for the purpose of interoperability) is illegal... So this means that you have no way of getting your API working on the console without signing the NDA. The companies lobbying to make copyright law the way it is know exactly what they are doing...

You can only share them via private forums hosted by consoles parent companies, like siedev.net, developer.nintendo.com and similar. Direct sharing/selling of middleware/code between companies is usually fully forbidden.

It's wild to me that even just the API would be so controlled. Is it not enough that they control signing of the software? Does this not shoot them in the foot when it comes to courting developers?

Layman here, but IIUC it's the exact opposite. Nintendo in particular had massive problems with crapware and knockoff devs adopting the traditional 70s/80s PC game distribution paradigms, if you know what I mean. It was difficult to tell what was a genuine, high-quality purchase. Locking down development is apparently one of the reasons they won out over Atari. We're in a different world today, but 2/3rds of the major console market is Japanese, and the business culture there is supposedly very cautious about reapproaching things that have burnt the company in the past.

That explains why they locked their platforms down, but it doesn't explain why they need to do that at the API level. They already totally control the storefronts and all software run on a console must be signed by them. That should be enough to prevent the Atari situation on its own.

API lockdown is most probably to prevent crackers from learning enough about the system to create pirated copies of games.

> 2/3rds of the major console market is Japanese

What do you mean?

There are 3 major console makers. Two of which are Japanese companies.

Thanks! I feel it is strange to refer to that as “console market”.

Each of them has a monopoly on the store for their platforms, so courting developers is not a high priority.

Specially small developers that would benefit from such free middleware...

They compete with each other. Imagine how many indies one of the major consoles would draw by making it so much easier to develop.

The issue is the other way around.

The companies hold the gates to millions and millions of potential buyers. Indies want to sell in all of them and there is no other way for them to do so.

In addition, consider that most indies use Unity/UE, which already support the consoles, so vendors couldn't compete on ease of development even if they wanted.

If Godot was overwhelmingly used by indies, then yes, you could be right.

Most indies already use Unity, which has support for all consoles. Most indies don't even know a single native API call. Unless the game needs something very special, they just use Unity API for everything.

Consoles have huge potential audiences if you want to make money off your games.

So I guess I could share it on the private forums and link to it whenever someone is interested. Definitely a pain in the ass compared to even iOS as a walled garden.

Generally speaking, NDAs are structured such that you are allowed to share information/code/whatever with anyone else who is also covered by an NDA with the same entity.

Considering that Epic, and Unity clearly share their console API code with developers with agreements with MS and Sony it's clear that this is the case (+ or - maybe some exceptions specified in the agreements)