Ex-Naughty Dogs doing WiiWare game

Steel Penny Games has been accepted into Nintendo's WiiWare stable of developers, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

It's the Texas-based studio formed last year by Naughty Dogs Jason Hughes and Andrew Gilmour. You know, from the Uncharted: Drake's Fortune bunch.

Steel Penny spent much of 2007 slaving away on a fancy new engine geared towards the Wii, and has an original IP scheduled to launch this year.

Hughes described his strategy as "the modern equivalent of the garage method for an independent to gain a foothold in the industry - a unique opportunity WiiWare presents that we appreciate."

"I am impressed with the egalitarian approach Nintendo has taken toward WiiWare developers. It allows the risk burden to shift back onto the creative developers."

Which is confusing. But he sounds excited, so that's good.

WiiWare, known as Wii Software in Europe, was announced last June. It lets developers make small games for digital distribution, much like Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

Nintendo has yet to spout a date for Wii Software, although one developer accidentally let spill that we would see it in March.