10 Reasons Why Wii Ware Will Be Great

CantGetAWii · 01-30-2008, 09:55 PM

Quote:

This year Nintendo is going to launch their own downloadable game platform called 'WiiWare'. Here are a few reasons why it's going to be awesome.

1. Game sizes are not limited to 40MB

Initially it was thought that Nintendo had limited titles to a 40MB file size, but Nintendo put this rumor to bed by stating that 40MB is merely a recommendation, and not an official limit. The Wii has about 512MB of memory internally, so it is really this which will restrict game sizes. More space will allow developers to approach development with greater ambition and to create deeper experiences.

2. One game per month per publisher

We've already seen many publishers trying to cash in on the Wii's success with what has been termed 'shovelware'. Nintendo seem to be aware of this, and has made this rule to try and counteract publishers who would seek to inundate the platform with sub-par content. The 1 game a month rule will force publishers to be far more picky about what content they choose to sell, as the opportunities to do so will be restricted.

3. Fresh Content

Already the Wii is known as a platform which is cheaper to develop for; combine this with digital distribution and access to an audience that will soon be reaching 30 million and you have a platform that offers developers huge bang for their buck. With the barrier of entry so low, and potential rewards so high, WiiWare will see games from developers that would only have had access to the fragmented P.C. market until now. This will surely be a breath of fresh air to people tired of endless sequels.

4. The Wiimote and Nunchuck

The potential of the Wii's motion controls are only just beginning to be unlocked, but you have to feel that a lot of innovation and research is blocked through fear of poor sales and low returns. Perhaps with the punishment for failure now lowered, developers will truly allow their imaginations to run wild and use those controllers in some truly fantastic ways.

5. Niche Experiences

Many genres don't see many games as their sales typically are not high enough to warrant new ones, but that doesn't stop them from having a small but dedicated following. For those gamers tired of the endless train of FPS and Racing titles, perhaps Wiiware will see the resurrection of the point-and-click adventure and 2D shoot-em-up genres? Much like the internet in general, WiiWare makes the access of niche markets possible and worthwhile.

6. Square-Enix and Final Fantasy

Having the backing of Square-Enix at the launch of a platform is one thing, but to have them come through with a unique Final Fantasy is quite another. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land, amazingly looks better than 99% of 3rd party games released on the Wii so far, and looks to innovate and take the series in a different direction. Even Nintendo has yet to announce anything that looks as ambitious as this title.

7. The Wii has no hard drive

There I said it, now hear me out. The lack of a real hard-drive for the Wii may deprive it of many things, but what it also seems to have done is discourage developers from adding downloadable content for their existing franchises. No extra tracks for racing games, and no extra arenas and weapons for death-matches. What this means is that WiiWare will not be dominated by the same traditional titles that make up the charts. It will instead encourage developers to make brand new content knowing they are not competing with titles that have already sold millions of copies on disc.

8. Nintendo

Nintendo are superb at making epic games; the recent Zelda and Mario games on the Wii are evidence of this. But what Nintendo are also great at is introducing new play mechanics upon which to base new games. Examples of this are the vacuum in Luigi's Mansion and Fludd in Mario Sunshine. The problem comes that sometimes these mechanics aren't quite deep enough to warrant an entire epic game, but would really shine in a smaller experience that WiiWare could deliver. If ever there was developer that can take advantage of a platform with low risk, it is Nintendo.

9. Flexible Pricing

The Wii's traditional games have already seen the appearance of games of exceptional value, Resident Evil 4: Wii edition and Mercury Meltdown Revolution being two examples. Consumers expect to only pay full price for brand new games, and less for what they perceive as budget or ported titles. This same attitude will also apply to WiiWare and will help to create a platform where gamers will get more than ever for their gaming dollar. If Square-Enix's new Final Fantasy game comes in at the $15-20 mark, other developers worldwide will think hard about how to price their own offerings, including Nintendo.

10. Convenience

Recently I had the pleasure of attempting to hunt down No More Heroes, and ultimately found it at the 6th store I went to. Earlier Zack and Wiki had also led me on a merry chase. I've also had problems attempting to find some older Gamecube games I thought it would be fun to try, but it seems they've also transformed into hen's teeth. Whether it's down to the games being released in limited quatities, or simply having sold out, they proved frustratingly hard to find. The convenience of being able to buy games when and where you please is perhaps a minor advantage, but it's definitely a welcome one.

Source

vashivihan · 01-30-2008, 10:09 PM

the wiiware certainly looks promising. the new ff game screenshots are amazing.canadian developer x gen is also gonna make games for wiiware and there is new R type game coming out.man i am so excited.

261311 · 01-30-2008, 10:55 PM

That's gotten me all excited. Sad thing is, I can't get online- I found a connection last night but it's since ceased and locked.

Despite how excited this and the rest of the Wii's features are I'm slowly starting to hate it because I can't use them.

PS3Stinks · 01-30-2008, 10:56 PM

I can't wait until it either but I really hope that this will force them into a hardrive I really hate copying and deleting my stuff it really gets annoying.

westearth · 01-30-2008, 10:57 PM

The filesize thing is good, but not necessarrily something to be happy about unless Nintendo comes up with some hard drive support. The Wii only has 250MB, and even with just 40MB per game, you can do the math and realiz you can't have a lot of games for yourself, especially since that memory is being shared also for other things like VC, game saves, etc.

nic7 · 01-30-2008, 11:08 PM

Good Info CantGetAWii.

I'm definitely excited for Wiiware in general. I'm really just hoping for some sort of Zelda: Four Swords 2 downloadable with 4 player online co-op. That just sounds so good. Even without the online it will still be great though.

WiitnessID · 01-30-2008, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vashivihan

the wiiware certainly looks promising. the new ff game screenshots are amazing.canadian developer x gen is also gonna make games for wiiware and there is new R type game coming out.man i am so excited.

Really an R-type game SWEET! Where did you hear this I must confirm!

Oyeah I haven't tried it but what id nintendo just let us burn our own DVDs? I mean you would not need a sd card and I'm sure the community would make such disk with the only problem being piracy. Yet since we can already put roms on an sd card I think they already have that fixed. Really I would rather have DVDR support on my Wii rather than have a hard drive of which I know is going to go down one day! Also the sd cards don't last for ever either, they get corrupted it seems.

Yeah DVDr support could just be a matter of drivers or maybe it's already supported? Who knows! I mean they said nothing about a USB keyboard being supported and it works great! Also what if Wiware gives you the ability to run stuff off a SD card rather than from the internal flash? They could do this! Sd cards do come in 4 gig flavors and you can get 8 gig flavors also which is pretty big for a game. Most PC games ship on dvds right now so 8 gigs is over kill! Yet what if just what if nintendo sent out monthly disks with all of the Wii ware games on it and all you had to do is pay for it only and bam you have access to it! I would get a nintendo power subscription for that!

Back to subject I'm loving this Wiiware thing and if you are a gamer with some programming friends you too can be a developer but just a warning I've heard it is way harder then it seems to make a good game...LOL I've been seeing a lot of 2d game engines floating around also and these developers should find away to help these guys get on the Wii and start supporting the Wii mote also!

Yet give Mr. Lee a chance to put out engines to Wiiware developer would be sweet! Also too If this goes down the way I think it can go down then we could see more games that rock just like contra 4 and hell maybe we can even get a real ninja gaiden again! I mean the ds version would be sweet, I'd rather play it than the 3d version right now.

250-512 is huge for a 2d game. Some times my download times are surprisingly fast for some of the roms that are on the VC. Yet the Monthly disk thing would be sweet and very convenient to the people who love a good 2d game still. I mean come on if you remember the 4 player 2d side scrollers then you know what I'm talking about! Then possibly having online support also! Sweet...
EA should also offer their EA nation to these guys also , they could make some extra cash and possibly groom future employees.

How ever it goes I can't wait to try this out. So far I'm pretty impressed!

cyberzomby · 01-31-2008, 12:18 AM

I cannot wait for wiiware as well! its going be huge! I will waste a lot of cash on it im sure!

Really curious about what direction they will take it to, how many games we will see in 6 months from release and what type of games.

Also cant wait for that little king game! Seems really cool

CKmisfits · 01-31-2008, 12:49 AM

Is anyone else hoping for some point and click adventures in Wii ware? Like some classic style point click like monkey island-ish stuff? Just me?
The issue of hard drive is a serious issue though. Nintendo is retarded if they think they can just ignore it.

cyberzomby · 01-31-2008, 12:55 AM

Yea. But maybe this is just another conspiracy with the guys who sell SD-Cards huh? Think about, doenst it make sense?

LuckyArmpt · 01-31-2008, 01:42 AM

Hold on there Kiddies, some of you are forgetting. Sure, the wii aint gots no
hard drive. But, it does have a slot for SD card. All the VC games I dloaded off of the wii shop channel are archived on my SD card. So why not have a system update to the machine where the games can be loaded into internal memory off of an SD card? Just like the old cartridge based consoles of yesteryear.
I play alot of tiger woods golf on my wii. I'd love to have extra courses to coincide with the 18 you get off of the disc. Game saved states could still be homed off of the internal memory but by using an SD card, you could actually have an infinite # of games housed on SD cards. BTW, I bought my 2 gig card off of ebay, new for a whopping 97 cents. And, don't forget those usb ports on the machine. You could always run an external drive or card reader off of the port. I'd love to see a system update to enable us to use these storage options. Especially the SD card. While your buddy toasts his/her hard drive on their PS3 or Xbox 360, you can be merrily playing along without the headache of a drive failure. You can never have to much of a good thing.

Lucky...

vashivihan · 01-31-2008, 01:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WiitnessID

Really an R-type game SWEET! Where did you hear this I must confirm!

Oyeah I haven't tried it but what id nintendo just let us burn our own DVDs? I mean you would not need a sd card and I'm sure the community would make such disk with the only problem being piracy. Yet since we can already put roms on an sd card I think they already have that fixed. Really I would rather have DVDR support on my Wii rather than have a hard drive of which I know is going to go down one day! Also the sd cards don't last for ever either, they get corrupted it seems.

Yeah DVDr support could just be a matter of drivers or maybe it's already supported? Who knows! I mean they said nothing about a USB keyboard being supported and it works great! Also what if Wiware gives you the ability to run stuff off a SD card rather than from the internal flash? They could do this! Sd cards do come in 4 gig flavors and you can get 8 gig flavors also which is pretty big for a game. Most PC games ship on dvds right now so 8 gigs is over kill! Yet what if just what if nintendo sent out monthly disks with all of the Wii ware games on it and all you had to do is pay for it only and bam you have access to it! I would get a nintendo power subscription for that!

Back to subject I'm loving this Wiiware thing and if you are a gamer with some programming friends you too can be a developer but just a warning I've heard it is way harder then it seems to make a good game...LOL I've been seeing a lot of 2d game engines floating around also and these developers should find away to help these guys get on the Wii and start supporting the Wii mote also!

Yet give Mr. Lee a chance to put out engines to Wiiware developer would be sweet! Also too If this goes down the way I think it can go down then we could see more games that rock just like contra 4 and hell maybe we can even get a real ninja gaiden again! I mean the ds version would be sweet, I'd rather play it than the 3d version right now.

250-512 is huge for a 2d game. Some times my download times are surprisingly fast for some of the roms that are on the VC. Yet the Monthly disk thing would be sweet and very convenient to the people who love a good 2d game still. I mean come on if you remember the 4 player 2d side scrollers then you know what I'm talking about! Then possibly having online support also! Sweet...
EA should also offer their EA nation to these guys also , they could make some extra cash and possibly groom future employees.

How ever it goes I can't wait to try this out. So far I'm pretty impressed!

its in an issue of nintendo power with screenshots also. it would be vertical shooter but eith 3d graphics.

WiitnessID · 01-31-2008, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vashivihan

its in an issue of nintendo power with screenshots also. it would be vertical shooter but eith 3d graphics.

Sweet thanks man! Made my day yet I will have to beat r-type 3 soon..

jimbo · 01-31-2008, 09:09 PM

cant wait only thing im pi$$-ed about is that it cost $2000 to make games so right now im screwed in that sense but still this going to be 1 of the best things for wii 2008

Bliss · 01-31-2008, 09:12 PM

dont get me wrong wii ware sounsd awsome, but wats bothering me is memory...they need to put out a hard drive cuz its gonna get a lil crazy.

WiitnessID · 02-01-2008, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimbo

cant wait only thing im pi$$-ed about is that it cost $2000 to make games so right now im screwed in that sense but still this going to be 1 of the best things for wii 2008

Really hey you can always go here
http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque/twii/
You can get the PC copy and make your game from there. I started on this app for a small start up and the set up is very easy to use. You will need to know how to code though.
and get a working game going then make some cash and port it to the Wii.

That where you will get your $2000 from! It's just that easy if you have a will of steel! Oyeah and a team helps!

Good luck O yeah did I say this thing is cheap? It starts as low as 100 and supports many free 3d modelers.

Sterculius · 02-01-2008, 01:21 AM

everyone keeps worrying about them RELEASING a hard drive...all they have to do (and SHOULD do) is another system update for the wii to recognize a USB external storage device, just like they did with the usb wireless keyboards.