WiiWare, the Wii’s channel for original downloadable games, will officially launch in North America on May 12th, according to all around awesome guy N’Gai Croal over at Newsweek’s Level Up.
This is very exciting for people (like me!) who are very much looking forward to the creativity and overall retro feel most seemingly simple downloadable games have to offer. With the continued success of the Wii, a lot of smaller, independent publishers will have the opportunity to have their games seen by millions of people around the world.
Sadly, as mentioned in Croal’s same article (and being whispered about here in the halls of GDC), no demos will be available for any of these original downloads. How gamers are going to know which games to purchase in what is sure to be a sea of options is beyond me. Says Nintendo:
The key for us is not to impose too many restrictions on the content creators and allow them to create the content that and the features that they think are more suitable to express their vision of the product. And creating demos or having demos as a requirement is a very costly type of endeavor, so it's not a requirement from Nintendo.
I am a huge Nintendo supporter, but am very worried about this decision. Hopefully there is more to this story as Nintendo promises to reveal much more information about WiiWare over the next few days of GDC. What do you think? Is Nintendo shooting itself in the foot with this news?
Chad Concelmo is Destructoid's features editor. He loves hanging out with awesome people. That's why Destructoid makes him so happy, since it is full of THE MOST AWESOME PEOPLE OF ALL TIME! Also, dolphins.
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Chad enjoys punching old ladies in the face, Super Metroid, Zelda: A Link to the Past on the SNES (best system ever!), Final Fantasy VI, Day of the Tentacle, Shadow of the Colossus, Mother 3, Beyond Good & Evil, Contra III, Valkyria Chronicles, Punch-Out!!, Half-Life 2, and Super Mario Galaxy 2.
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Contest:
1:22 PM on 02.20.2008
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Unless they decided to allow external HDDs...
That is what I am hoping to find out more about in the next few days. I am reading it the same way as you (mainly that it is not a requirement, but is still possible), but game developers here seem to be spreading the word that it is not an option at all. Hopefully more will be revealed soon ...
Oh, and Chad, guess what your points card gift might be going towards? Can you say WiiWare launch titles?
I have this same problem with the PlayStation Network. I barely own any downloadable games on my PS3, because I can't try them first. I hope the developers realize that demos are pretty much essential in this day and age.
I've never owned a TG16 in the past, so all those games are completely new to me. Everytime one comes to the VC I find enough information and reviews before making my purchase and for the most part the system works...
If you take any heat just say I asked you nicely. It should be sweet, I know a few cops.