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WiiWare FTW? *UPDATED* June 27, 2008

Filed under: Rants/Opinions, Wii/DSiWare — Dark Jinjo @ 2:00 am

wiiware logo 300x57 WiiWare FTW? *UPDATED*

 

With the announcement of Mega Man 9 for WiiWare I thought that it would be interesting to get a feel for everyone’s opinions on the current state of Nintendo’s download service.  There are currently sixteen titles available for download in the United States and there are definitely some standout titles available; but there are also a few rotten eggs.  There is also the elephant in the room that is the Wii’s limited storage.  So, in an effort to get a dialogue going I thought that I would host a little friendly competition.  Feel free to post your thoughts on the current, and future, state of WiiWare in the comments section for this post and I will choose one commenter to receive the WiiWare game of their choice. 

RULES:

To be eligible for consideration your comment should be constructive, not overly long (keep ‘em under 300 words or so), and should present a solid argument.  All eligible comments must be submitted before 12:00 am on Sunday the 29th and I will announce the winner sometime Sunday evening.  At the top of each comment that represents an entry please write your name, time, and date submitted so I know which comments are actual entries.  And above all, let’s keep the conversation polite!  I hope that this contest gets you all thinking, and maybe some of the things that you share will get noticed by the big dogs at Nintendo.  Enjoy and good luck!

 

UPDATE:

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest.  There were some great submissions and I think it is always a good idea to get some discussion going on.  I have chosen the winner and I really liked this comment for several reasons, the most important one being that it got me excited about the future of WiiWare.  I have been hoping that Nintendo and third parties would realize the potential of WiiWare as a platform to re-release old classics either remade or as completely new entries.  The announcement of Mega Man 9 is, hopefully, a launching off point for these kinds of titles.  I realize that lots of you will probably disagree with my choice, but I am planning some more contests like this in the future.  Thanks again for your entries and I have posted the winning comment below.  So, Mike/Anza, I will send you an email sometime tonight and get you hooked up with your WiiWare game.

User Anza

Mike 12:10AM June 28, 2008

While Wii Ware is opening new possibilities for smaller developers on the Wii the release of Mega Man 9 for it is by far the most interesting aspect I’ve seen yet, Mega Man hasn’t had a sequel to its original series in decades and now suddenly it’s getting a revival on of all things, a downloadable game. What this means is that while new titles from smaller developers are sure to come out it’s also a chance for larger developers including Nintendo themselves to revive older long lost but never forgotten series and breath in new life with classic graphics and gameplay.

I can’t be the only one who wants to see a real sequel to Super Mario RPG can I? Even if the game was using the exact same engine with a new story I’d be amazingly happy! Lets got get some old good ones like Sonic (who’d not love to see a new 2D sonic game based off the S&K engine?), Shining Force, Metroid, Kirby, even games like Fire Emblem could be redesigned to run Genesis/SNES graphics but with new levels, stories, gameplay options and much more!

Simply put Wii Ware offers everyone to not only relive classic gaming experiences, but also to give newcomers a chance to see what kind of games we were playing and enjoying when we were their age! Let them see why Sonic was better back in his old days, let them understand why Metroid was so amazing to begin with, give us all a chance to play Kirby after ignoring him for so long, let Fire Emblem classics finally come stateside or be designed with the a US release in mind! The possibilities of Wii Ware are endless and so should our hopes be as well my friends!



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Top 20 WiiWare Games in the USA as of Nov. 5, 2008

WiiWare World – Best of ‘08

Flash support coming to WiiWare

Top 20 WiiWare Games in USA (28th Jan)

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  • Elias
    Congratulations Mike!

    And about the return of a classic game I would like to see back a really well made kirby game
  • Ya, a starfox space shooter would look cool as well, a over head space shooter I mean, with 1 player, 2 player, and you guessed it, wi-fi as well!
  • digfree
    Wait, I thought you said return on Virtral Consal :P
    (yes I have bad spelling)

    Well, a remake of q-bert would be fun on wiiware, well as long it was better controls and is wi-fi able. imagin, both q-berts trying to get as many colored square as possible of their own color!
  • digfree
    ... and yes... if you haven't relised it yet, I have horrible spelling :P
  • digfree
    I'm waiting for the final fantisy game, I don't know which one, I was to young to rember it, I rember you can pick your team in the very begaining, such as wizerds, thiefs... ect. if you die, you could either be revided our turned to ash where you were dead for good. Also you enter a wirlpool, and you'll go into a black and white world where nothing makes sence... Any of you know what game I'm talking about? Also, during fights, it went to a grid like battle allot like chess, you move your swordsman up to attak, and wizerd attack from away. It's bugging me, cause I just can't find the name of it...

    Also, Alfred Chicken, a lesser known game, was a blast, good graphics and designs, and some cool intervasions.

    Also high up on my list the oringanl Starfox! Gota love that music. And addition maybe starfox 2 (japan only I think) allot like starfox command DS, but you can turn your arwing into a 2 legged walking tank, and turn back into a arwing in a sec.

    Some other favrites not out on VC include paper boy, Q-Bert, and among others...
  • Dark Jinjo
    Feel free to post your responses to my decision and maybe discuss what classic games from the 8 or 16 bit era you would like to see return in classic form on WiiWare.
  • knot
    LOl no problem, I would have said it earlier, but I wanted everyone to post there comments first. SO I waiting till the competition expired.
  • Dark Jinjo
    Hey knot, one thing that you will quickly learn about me is that I have about as much common sense as Morgan Freeman when he's choosing his next film. I forgot that it automatically generates all that information at the top of every post anyway. I was expecting this type of post a lot sooner :) Anyways, thanks for everyone who entered a comment and I will have the winner chosen sometime this evening. Now we can all get excited for My Pokemon Ranch 2 coming to WiiWare tomorrow! (just kidding...I hope.)
  • knot
    "At the top of each comment that represents an entry please write your name, time, and date submitted so I know which comments are actual entries."

    Ummmm from what I see this is automatically done once you post your answer (look over my name it should say
    "June 29th, 2008 at 7:53 am"

    Just pointing that out
  • digfree
    kk, Just their other hit are the "viva pinata" games, which I belive are on the wii as far as I know
  • Dark Jinjo
    Digfree:

    As far as Banjo Kazooie goes, yes, I am a big fan of the older N64 titles. And just so you know Rare does not currently, nor have they ever made a game for the Wii. They were purchased by Microsoft around 2001 or 2002 and have since made games exclusively for the Xbox platforms (with the exception of some Nintendo DS games) That is why Banjo 3 is only coming to the 360 and will never be on the Wii. It's nothing personal against Nintendo, they just made more money by developing for Microsoft and felt that they had a little more creative freedom to follow their own designs. The only Rare games you will ever see on the Wii are those on virtual console that Rare developed in the past and Nintendo still owns the rights to, such as the SNES Donkey Kong Country series. Hope that helps answer your questions.
  • lokijki
    lokijki, June 28th, 1:06

    WiiWare is really great, and it has some really great games out already, but I think it suffers from the same problem as full Wii games, developers shoveling out crap to make some cash. There's really no way around it, the Wii has sold so well, that everyone wants to cash in on that. And because so many people own a Wii, there's enough people to buy the crap no matter how bad it is. WiiWare really just makes it easier for shovelware games to be published.

    But on the upside, it offers some really, really great gaming thats cheap and easy to get. I currently own Dr. Mario, Crystal Chronicles, Lost Winds, and Defend your Castle, and their all great games, and altogether they cost $40 (forgive me if I remembered some of the prices wrong), which is less then a normal game by itself. It's also going to give smaller developers a chance to publish games on the Wii (hopefully).

    But I think the main problem Nintendo will face is the storage issue, which they're aware of, and hopefully have been searching for a solution. I know some may argue that Nintendo doesn't care, but if they don't find an answer it could possibly hurt their sales. If someone doesn't have room for a download, and doesn't want to remove things from the hard drive, they may end up just not buying it. I think a solution could be being able to play things directly off the SD card. I'm sure Nintendo could find a way to lock the game to the console where the game was bought, and most people already have an SD card with more memory then the Wii has by itself. But I guess what's stopped them from doing that is the possibility of games being hacked and distributed over the internet.
  • Anza
    Mike 12:10AM June 28, 2008

    While Wii Ware is opening new possibilities for smaller developers on the Wii the release of Mega Man 9 for it is by far the most interesting aspect I've seen yet, Mega Man hasn't had a sequel to its original series in decades and now suddenly it's getting a revival on of all things, a downloadable game. What this means is that while new titles from smaller developers are sure to come out it's also a chance for larger developers including Nintendo themselves to revive older long lost but never forgotten series and breath in new life with classic graphics and gameplay.

    I can't be the only one who wants to see a real sequel to Super Mario RPG can I? Even if the game was using the exact same engine with a new story I'd be amazingly happy! Lets got get some old good ones like Sonic (who'd not love to see a new 2D sonic game based off the S&K engine?), Shining Force, Metroid, Kirby, even games like Fire Emblem could be redesigned to run Genesis/SNES graphics but with new levels, stories, gameplay options and much more!

    Simply put Wii Ware offers everyone to not only relive classic gaming experiences, but also to give newcomers a chance to see what kind of games we were playing and enjoying when we were their age! Let them see why Sonic was better back in his old days, let them understand why Metroid was so amazing to begin with, give us all a chance to play Kirby after ignoring him for so long, let Fire Emblem classics finally come stateside or be designed with the a US release in mind! The possibilities of Wii Ware are endless and so should our hopes be as well my friends!
  • Evdawg30
    Evan (above)
    11:36
    June 27, 2008
  • Evdawg30
    Wiiware is great not only for consumers of the wii but also for not so rich developers. The advances we've made that games can be marketed through the internet without shipping anything or having to organize an assembly line is also very innovative. I think it gives wii owners something more to look forward to every Monday along with virtual console releases. These are the good things about this service.

    Some of the bad things are obviously lack of time and effort spent on making these games. Most of the games on Wiiware have been rated pretty average with a couple exceptions. Many of the developers do not take advantage of the wiis capabilities such as online play, mii integration, and the new pay to play downloadable content service. In fact only one game so far has the pay to play service. Another bad thing about Wiiware is the storage space on the wii. Nintendo has made sure you don't have to buy games again after you delete them but it tends to aggravate wii owners that they can't have it all in the Wii menu at once. A third problem with Wiiware games is that HDTV owners sometimes don't get to experience full 480p. This was a critical mistake with Mario Party 8 and has managed to happen with a the newest wiiware games.

    Although as you can see my negative paragraph is larger than the positive paragraph its important to know that even though we see mediocre Wiiware titles now, we can always look forward to new and improved titles in the future.
  • Takar Blackangel
    WiiWare is one of the greatest thing to happen to the Wii. But as everyone know, nothing is perfect and the WiiWare service is no exception.

    First of all, the problem of bad games. Sure, this issue plagues every system and every way of distribution, may it be online purchase or retail boxes, but it's something that seems to be predominant on Nintendo's latest born console. The controls possibility that the Wiimote/Nunchuck brought with them is a main factor in this. There are shining examples of perfect gameplay. Lost Winds being one of them. The controls are simple, efficient and the error margin if you do, let's say, a crappy circle around something, is perfect. However, for one game like this, three or four games with poor controls are released, tarnishing the image of the Wiiware service. The best way to prevent those products from being distributed is the good old "Nintendo's seal of Quality". All games would be tested and approved (or refused) by a few select Nintendo's employees. This way, games that "disgrace" the Wii could be avoided. Major improvement for customers : less risk of buying a bad game.

    Secondly, the storage issue is a major one. I understand why Big N didn't want to implement an HDD in the Wii (production costs, size of the console, etc.). However, with the coming of WiiWare games, 512 Mb isn't sufficient. There is one simple solution to this problem : allow WiiWare games to be played directly form an SD card. Simple update. SD cards retails for mere peanuts these days. This way, customers are happy, and this update cost is almost null.

    Otherwise, WiiWare is a great service, as proven by other online distribution platforms like Steam or XBLA. Indie developers will finally bring their great ideas to the Wii, new talents will be discovered and the video games landscape will be greatly enriched by those devs. Games like Lost Winds give me huge hopes for the future of this service.


    P.S. : Please forgive me if a few mistakes are present in my text, English is my second language.
  • digfree
    (I apologize, because this is a ALOT off topic, and is not a submission)

    Ello dark Jinjo, I can tell you like Banjo Kazooie just as much as me, it's my favrite game really for n64, both 1 and 2. I've been trying to figure out why Rare is turning to X-Box, vs. nintendo with Banjo Kazooie 3. It isn't like it was just sold to Mac. and only does X-box games now, because there still plenty of rare games on wii. You are part of this site, and you must know something about it, I've been looking around hear for a long time, but can't get an ansew anywhere. Either email me our reply, I really need to know.

    (I'm sorry, I have no intention to go off topic hear, I just don't know where else to contact you)
  • Dark Jinjo
    I really like Jason's idea of the future direction of WiiWare. This is the kind of thing I am looking for in this discussion; a clear description of your thoughts on WiiWare and its current state and/or future possibilities. So far everyone is doing great. Feel free to write more than one entry if you have anything else to say.
  • WiiWare is the first step of a natural evolution for console gaming. In the PC world software is moving to a service oriented distribution. In this model you don't necessarily download the the software directly to your PC but install some basic runtime locally and then login to the service provider's site and launch the application. Albeit this is not widely seen in PC gaming either but you can see many examples of it in business software. Google Docs is an excellent example where users don't have to install a thing. Microsoft has even announced that Office will be available as a service in the future. Some pay-n-play sites selling games as a service are Shockwave Unlimited, RealArcade, and Microsoft's Live Search Club. Each of these sites require a small fee for unlimited access to all their games. IMHO this is where Nintendo needs to move to. I know plenty of people who will pay $20/month for unlimited access to games on the Wii.

    I am disappointed with WiiWare's current state where you have to pay $10 for a game that you might not even like. In the interim, Nintendo may try bundling games so that you have a better chance of getting a game that you will enjoy. As previously pointed out, space is limited on the Wii and this is another hurdle Nintendo has to jump. In my eyes the Wii is a hit, but WiiWare has a lot of improvement before anyone takes it seriously.
  • Well,
    Basically every wiiware game so far with the exception of lostwinds, you have been able to find on the internet for free. I thought the whole point of this was to let indie
    developers create the games that want at minimal cost to them. Not let all of these junk
    minigames be released at 700-1500 wiipoints. Its crazy, i bought a good 3 or 4 and i only
    love one, Lostwinds.
    What hullbreach said is really sad, a team who would actually make a decent game aren't
    being allowed. If what hullbreach said was correct, Nintendo is actually ignoring the
    indie developers, a sad fact considering that we will only have the occasional gem and the rest will basically be shovelware.
    Im not too worried about the storage solution as Nintendo said they already have something
    in the works that wasn't a hard drive. That means it is either ThumbDrive or SD card
    solutions that are left. Both of which I have plenty of. If Nintendo trys to sell a
    special one that is formated specially, hackers will find a way around it and you will
    be able to use your own.
    I know that there are some people that have already filled up their wii. I personally have<\
    and i have had to delete all of my VC games just to have the wiiware on my wii.
    We all know that downloadable games are the future of gaming, and this is only the start.
    hopefully, Nintendo gets off their bums and start filtering out games and just saying no,
    we dont want this for our customers. I doubt it will happen, but i can dream right?

    haha, i think im done :D
  • Elias
    Elias Madera - 1:52 P.M. - 6/27/08

    I think the WiiWare service is a great opportunity for small and new developers to show the industry how capable they are to make good games, and maybe if they're good enough some big company may hire them to make games with a bigger budget.

    On the side of the player WiiWare is a good idea because it brings fresh games to the wii at a smaller cost.

    So in my opinion, although Nintendo has to fix the Wii's storage limits so a developer may have the freedom of no thinking on this issue, wiiware is an all win service which can be a reference in tomorrow's way of business in the videogames industry, connecting the creativity of new developers with the capacities of established companies.
  • tommy
    me want game :D
  • Joseph McDevitt
    Joseph McDevitt
    6-27-08
    11:52 AM
    Wii ware presents a great opportunity for small developers and consumers. There are a few gems on the service, and a few games that don't look very appealing at all. If the developers choose to produce a high quality product everyone wins. If they choose to just pump out a low quality program at a low cost the service will suffer. Let's just hope that developers make the right decision, and produce quality titles.
    It would also be nice if Nintendo would simply let us play the games of our SD cards to reduce the effect of the storage issue.
  • Although Nintendo claim to be allowing small and indie development houses to create WiiWare games, I put in an application with a local (to me) software company, and I've heard nothing back from Nintendo. Seeing much of the current crop of WiiWare games, it makes me wonder if Nintendo have gone back on their word of helping the indie developers and chosen to just go with established (in the console industry) companies instead.

    At the moment, I'm concentrating my efforts on pushing Internet Channel homebrew to its absolute limits. I'm working on engines for a 3D sidescroller, a first-person shooter, and an on-rails space shooter, all of which keep decent framerates with full texture-mapping. Of course they would benefit greatly from the processing power of compiled code directly on the Wii.

    For those who Nintendo have actually allowed to develop WiiWare titles: Many titles look great, but I'm reluctant to purchase anything without a playable demo first. I've bought many Virtual Console titles, but those are all ones I've previous played as a child or teenager. I'm definitely not sinking $10.00-$15.00 (USD) into a game I can already play in Flash for free on the Internet Channel, which is what many of the smaller-scale titles seem to be.

    Aside from the titles themselves, it's a relief that Nintendo are finally looking into a solution to the storage shortage. I had no problem when it was just Virtual Console games from the older systems, but now that games have optical media capacity, a solution couldn't come soon enough, be it the ability to directly play from SD/SDHC cards or use a USB thumbdrive (since a recent press release seems to have discounted the idea of a hard drive).
  • Kevin
    11:28 AM, June 27

    I think that WiiWare is a great way for smaller developers to get their ideas out to the world and gain success. I would love to see a fully fledged LostWinds sequel on Wii. However, I feel like WiiWare is distracting Nintendo from the virtual console.. We are all STILL waiting on Majora's Mask, Mario RPG, EarthBound, etc. As for the storage concerns.. Like voice chat, I feel that Nintendo isn't going to step it up. They aren't willing to give in to the pressure and are keeping Wii unique (Even though that isnt such a good thing..) Perhaps they will begin to release free SD Cards along with Wii consoles.. Anyway I don't think Nintendo isn't going to adopt a hard drive until NEXT generation..
  • knot
    I think Nintendo has a lot of good ideas and potential for WiiWare software, but the lack of space will and is actually catching up to the gamers limited space. So that's Wii saves, VC games, "channel" saves, Pop (play to pay) and now WiiWare saves. Re-downloading isn't so bad, but the WIi has SD support and refuse to add a HDD.

    People have to pay $5-$15 for WiiWare titles and demos would be nice; although I think free demos are unlikely to happen(Mario RX is not a free demo btw!). WiiWare titles are suppose to be "fresh" developed games, not previous PC titles and other games (Example: Prothea"pc")and "spin-offs"(example Aero Guitar). I'll like fresh games. The addition to play WiiWare titles using Nintendo WFC (wi-fi) is a GREAT add on and I look forward to playing against friends over the net.

    As for the Download services, I think that re-downloading games will get repetitive if Nintendo doesn't solve the growing storage problem and could lead to a drop in sales. If you have to delete some of your games and take your Wii with you on vacation you will need the internet to play the game YOU want to play. Or else you will have to play the games thats stored in your Wii. The Pay to Play feature seems to be Nintendo answer to downloadable content (other than GH: World Tour). Although this is a cool, I'd rather have DL content with WII GAMES as well, other than GH: World Tour.

    WiiWare titles have a bright future, but Nintendo must correct things to keep customers and gamers happy.
  • digfree
    When I heard the wii got the option to be able to download old hits via virtral consle, I thought that was great! I grew up with nes and snes, and bringing back the childhood classics were a great idea. Also of corse knowing not everone had the cance to play the classics, could now try them out for the first time. Now the buzz is about wii ware, I haven't yet downloaded any wiiware titles yet, cause frankly they look like minigames if anything, and I'm not the type to buy party games. Sure Dr. mario is a classic, and I love defend your castle on the computer, but just in my eyes aren't worth that much money (I'm not cheap, just don't get much money, no allowence:P).

    Any ways, I can see them takinjg up as much memory as you say, I never thought of it that way untill now. I think they went a good way with Dr. Mario with the Wi-fi battle option, that way it has a great replay value. Nintendo should make perhapes smaller games, but make them wifi friendly, this solves the memeroy problem and replay problem as well. Such as the computer classics "Stickman arena" Or "Dinorun" both just happons to belong to the same compeny that owns def. your castle, so it's not impossible either.
  • Nintendo is limiting themselves by not providing a serious storage option. Other than that, I think they are doing everything right with WiiWare (except taking this long to get it started).
  • Brett
    I agree with the first poster.
    I think WiiWare is a great opportunity for smaller developers to get their work seen, but Nintendo needs to address the space issue (in hopefully an inexpensive manner).

    I can't imagine that it would be that difficult to add support for a n external hard drive. I just hope you don't have to buy their own (probably over-priced one).
    I have not purchased any WiiWare titles yet, but suspect I will in the near future.
    I am looking forward to World of Goo, Competitive Easting (maybe...wish I could try a demo) and of course the recently announced Mega Man 9!!!

    Nintendo should really consider offering demos of these games. While most people are very familiar with the VC games, the WiiWare games may need demos in order to get people to drop ~$10 each on them.
  • I think it's great that developers can create minigames (but bigger), however the state of the storage is a problem which Nintendo will have to face very soon. How can they expect us to buy so many titles if we can't contain them?
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