IGN has an interview up today that goes over basically everything there is to know about WiiWare.
All in all it’s pretty positive, interesting stuff, although Nintendo’s decision to forgo a demo service in lieu of promoting games via the Everybody’s Nintendo Channel could be hit-or-miss, in my opinion.
For you attention defect types Kotaku broke the interview down into more manageable chunks:
100 Games: [Nintendo of America’s Tom] Prata said there should be around 100 games “available” when the service launches on May 12. They won’t all be available at once, with Nintendo choosing to adopt a Virtual Console-style delivery method and deliver only a few titles at a time.
Bedroom Coders Need Not Apply: When the service was first touted, it sounded like it Nintendo were going to be accommodating small teams with big ideas. Not necessarily true. What they actually meant was small teams from big companies; you still need to be a licensed developer to get a game on the service, and becoming a licensed developer in Nintendo’s eyes is neither easy nor cheap.
Feature Sets: Developers will have access to the Wii’s full suite of functionality, but will be forced to use none of it. In other words, if a game wants to use Wii Connect 24, save to an SD card and feature online multiplayer, great! If it just wants to be downloaded and played with a GameCube controller, great.
No Demos: You won’t get to try before you buy. WiiWare won’t be allowing users to download and play demos of a game before purchasing, as Nintendo felt that forcing them to come up with a potentially costly demo ran against the whole point of the service. Instead, it sounds like they just want you to check the Everybody’s Nintendo Channel (which must be launching before May 12), watch a trailer or two and make your purchasing decision based off that.
An interesting little interview. It’s not Xbox Live, but then again no one from Nintendo said that was the point. Comparing it to the current standard in online console gaming is purposefully ignorant or genuinely ignorant. Either way, you get the idea.
