One of the worst aspects of the Wii's WiiWare initiative is the total lack of a "try before you buy" option. Time was, you could download a demo for a WiiWare game before dropping the points, but Nintendo scrapped such shenanigans for no good reason. Now it's bringing them back, and there is much rejoicing.
Of course, there's a catch. The demos will only be available "for a limited time only ensuring the line-up is constantly kept refreshed to provide players with a varied and entertaining experience.”
The first demos will arrive this Friday for Furry Legends, Jett Rocket, ThruSpace and Zombie Panic in Wonderland. Never again will you have to feel like you're gambling. At least, until Nintendo decides to arbitrarily pull the feature again.
Nintendo to provide WiiWare demos again [VG247]
One of the worst aspects of the Wii's WiiWare initiative is the total lack of a "try before you buy" option. Time was, you could download a demo for a WiiWare game before dropping the points, but Nintendo scrapped such shenanigans for no good reason. Now it's bringing them back, and there is much rejoicing.
Of course, there's a catch. The demos will only be available "for a limited time only ensuring the line-up is constantly kept refreshed to provide players with a varied and entertaining experience.”
The first demos will arrive this Friday for Furry Legends, Jett Rocket, ThruSpace and Zombie Panic in Wonderland. Never again will you have to feel like you're gambling. At least, until Nintendo decides to arbitrarily pull the feature again.
Nintendo to provide WiiWare demos again [VG247]
Contest:
7:47 AM on 11.02.2010 | 
Ah, one of the reasons I have, for the most part, completely skipped the WiiWare scene (I did buy FFIV: The After Years, though). I don't like gambling with my money on a game I can't try before I buy unless I'm fairly certain I'm going to enjoy it (read: Super Meat Boy), so this might actually convince me to dust off the ol' Wii before Skyward Sword drops.</p>
Well to be far, Nintendo didn't really just scrap it for no good reason. They told us all along, that it was only a temporary thing, when they did it last November. Why it has taking them a full year to start it back up again, is anyones guess. But oh well, at least its back now and it seems like its a permanent thing this time around, so that's good. </p>
Awesome. It's about time.</p>
This is soo good for the small developers, don't even know why it was taken back</p>
this, coupled with the increase of club nintendo rewards is putting the big n back on the right track. i think it's obvious to everyone that the wii shop channel is busted. at least for finding the good releases, that is. they should think about demoing disc based games as well.</p>
They should bring back Virtual Console releases while they're at it. More than 1 a week, with games people actually asked for.</p>
Yes, great!</p>
<p>
I still don't really understand why they scrapped it, and will scrap it again, apparently. I know they worked for me, at least. I downloaded 3 demos (which was all or nearly all that was available in Europe) and went on to buy 2 of those games and I was seriously thinking about buying the third for some time, although I don't think that is going to happen anymore.</p>
The only game I really wanted to buy from that last one was <em>Bit Trip Beat </em>because looking back now, the selection was really terrible. Nintendo is really backwards for not releasing more demos on <em>WiiWare</em> or even <em>Virtual Console </em>(ala <em>Super Smash Bros</em>) to let people have some clue beyond videos of how things play. I bet Nintendo Execs wonder why so few people connect their Wiis to the internet and yet don't even grasp simple concepts like this.</p>
<p>
I'm not even sure why demos are on for a limited time or why the heck they don't just put demos of <strong>actual games</strong> on <em>WiiWare</em>. Maybe they just don't like the thought of people actually using their Wiis.</p>
Nintendo is so weird with this stuff. Why not just let any developer who wants to make a demo put their demo on WiiWare and they can pull it when they feel like it? They've obviously let developers do whatever the fuck they want with their retail software, so what's the deal?</p>
I remember trying each and every demo on there and was very pleased with some of the games. I have no idea why Nintendo hates this feature, though.</p>
I don't undertand why they don't go the XBLA route by providing demos of all games with an option to unlock. </p>
If there's one thing I do not like about Nintendo is has been the company's baby step approach to embracing online features that have become the standard in this generation.</p>
<p>
I realize Nintendo primarily makes single player games, but following the philosophy of being different from other companies isn't always a good thing. Some times, it results in being uniquely stupid in the sense that you have no good reason not to offer them.</p>
<p>
Nintendo, you can't just offer a half-baked online service and not offer standard, popular features like voice chat and downloadable demos. That path of logic just doesn't make sense. What the company should have done is spend less time developing pointless features like the Wii news and forecast channels and instead offer features that are actually worthwhile that benefit the online service in ways that will remain important and can be expanded upon in the futurte of the platform's life cycle.</p>
<p>
</p>