Nintendo announce WiiWare

[BooJaka]

Wii to receive original downloadable games.

Check it out

[brkl]

Woooooooooo! Woooo!

[adfegg]

Think there will be adventure games?

[Wrestlevania]

Nintendo say they actively want indie developers creating content, so it's simply down to whatever people want to make.

And if this doesn't all-but-guarantee the new Sam & Max episodes coming to Wii, I'll loose what little faith I have left in the games industry.

I'm certainly a lot more interested in picking up a Wii now. But I think I'll wait to see the calibre of what Nintendo decide to distribute via WiiWare first.

Why's it called Wii Software outside of the US though? That's rubbish. WiiWare is much more catchy and surely not already trademarked?

[Kolzig]

WiiWare for the Win!

[nckrlf]

And if this doesn't all-but-guarantee the new Sam & Max episodes coming to Wii, I'll loose what little faith I have left in the games industry.

I seem to remember Jake making an interesting post in that regard on some other website.

This post is looking a bit boring, so I'll have a play with the smilies.

[BooJaka]

In other Wii-centric news, the console seems to be getting a hell of a lot more support from Namco, Sega and Capcom.

[Wrestlevania]

I want to see SEGA annoucing stuff like Condemned 2 and The Club for Wii. Not necessarily those titles, but that kind of title - i.e. pretty hardcore, mature games. Capcom releasing something like Lost Planet, too, would also be an extremely important step forward.

We need a major publisher to start driving Wii development in this way, with "proper" AAA games. People still aren't taking it seriously at the moment and it's depressing.

It also has me worried that Wii may fizzle out once there are no more PS2 games to shuffle over. This "PS2+PSP+Wii" shovelware mentality is fucking abominable.

[BooJaka]

Japan's top three third-party publishers are ramping up development for Nintendo's Wii and DS systems, at the expense of rivals Sony and Microsoft. Namco Bandai will reportedly increase Nintendo hardware development by 109 percent to 115 titles, Sega will up its titles by 96 percent to 49, and Capcom titles will rise by 5 percent to 20.

With numbers like those I'm sure we'll be seeing some solid original games

[Wrestlevania]

[numbers]

Granted, that improves the statistical likelihood of less shovelware. But that's only with the benefit of assumption... and blind hope.

We need to hear about specific franchises/IPs being given a solid, meaningful entry in their series. Not some trashy party game tie-in, outsourced to Bolivia.

[SiN]

Actually, the news is a bit shit.

It says that Nintendo will allow anything on WiiWare as long as it passes their QA and gets an ESRB rating. So first, there's no quality control. Second, Ninty says they won't rate the game for you. Third, you'll need a Wii devkit to write WiiWare.

What this all means is that to write a WiiWare game, you'll need at least $5000 + $2500* to fund your projects. The real little guys like you and I need not apply.

*($5000 = esrb rating cost as I recall. The ninty development website says Wii devkits cost between $2500-$7500 ... I just took the best case)

On the other hand, Microsoft lets you write stuff for your Xbox for $99 a year. The catch is that if the game isn't up to snuff, they won't put it up on XBLA. Which isn't much of a catch, seeing as Quality Control is quite important ... WiiWare could very well end up with a hundred Bejewelled clones, whereas Microsoft will simply not let that happen.

It's a bit depressing really, because Ninty could have done something awesome here. Typical Nintendo, come late to the game, and underwhelm. Sounds a bit like their last-gen "online" plan, doesn't it?

SiN

[Wrestlevania]

It says that Nintendo will allow anything on WiiWare as long as it passes their QA and gets an ESRB rating. So first, there's no quality control. [snip]

You're not making sense.

[SiN]

You're not making sense.

Ack, sorry. It does make sense, but I wasn't very clear.

Quality Assurance (QA) means testing a game for bugs.

Quality Control means making sure a game isn't shit.

So if Nintendo did both, when the 15th sub-standard Bejewelled clone is sent to them, it would pass QA (assuming there were no bugs in it) but would probably fail QC ("the game isn't up to our standards, and we don't need any more bejewelled games thanks").

[edit]So just to clarify, in the context of that quote, these are the two facts that correlate:

It says that Nintendo will allow anything on WiiWare as long as it passes their QA and gets an ESRB rating. So first, there's no quality control.

Hope that makes sense.

[/edit]

SiN

[Wrestlevania]

I was aware of the distinction in terms, but I'm not convinced the processes are mutually exclusive in Nintendo's case. I also didn't get the impression that Nintendo would allow any old thing into the catalogue—quite the opposite in fact.

But this is just my personal interpretation of what's been said so far. Right now, I'm expecting the WiiWare channel to replicate XBLA (PSN's dismal lack of anything notwithstanding), except with greater indie input.

Which should mean greater diversity and originality than the competing services form Sony and Microsoft. At least, if Nintendo get this right it should...

[nsps]

Does it really cost $5000 for a rating regardless of size, scope and production cost?

That's bullshit considering that all the console companies have made it mandatory.

[SiN]

@Wrestlevania:

[...] we were taken aback when Fils-Aime informed us that his company's oversight of WiiWare titles would be minimal. "Nintendo will not do any screening of ideas," he said. "The games have to pass our bug checking process, but that's the only screening that we're doing."

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/06/27/reggie-on-his-big-plans-for-a-little-nintendo-wiiware.aspx"](source)

That seems pretty concise to me.

@nsps:

I could certainly be wrong. That's the number I heard a while back. I had a quick look around the ESRB website earlier today but couldn't find anything about the cost of rating.

SiN

[nsps]

Do the Xbox Live games have to get ESRB ratings? (I don't have an Xbox.) Maybe they worked a deal and Ninty didn't bother to?

[Udvarnoky]

And if this doesn't all-but-guarantee the new Sam & Max episodes coming to Wii, I'll loose what little faith I have left in the games industry.

While Telltale is probably very interested in the Virtual Console, it's my impression that a hypothetical Sam & Max Wii port would be released on a disc and not downloadable off the service. Just my guess given the space limitations.

[SpiderMonkey]

Actually, the news is a bit shit.

It says that Nintendo will allow anything on WiiWare as long as it passes their QA and gets an ESRB rating. So first, there's no quality control. Second, Ninty says they won't rate the game for you. Third, you'll need a Wii devkit to write WiiWare.

I don't think Nintendo have any business dictating to people what they do and don't develop. Contrast this with the general grumbling that the XBLA process is long-winded and conservative, and it's really hard to call their strategy "last-gen". The last-gen Nintendo is the one that makes demands about content and pisses off third-parties by being excessively controlling.

I'm also not sure you can compare the XNA license stuff with what's on offer here? Surely if you wanted to go XBLA, you would need an ESRB rating, and until such time, you are limited to whoever also has a subscription. Still, I'd hope they open it up in the same way Microsoft has.

[Wrestlevania]

[...] we were taken aback when Fils-Aime informed us that his company's oversight of WiiWare titles would be minimal. "Nintendo will not do any screening of ideas," he said. "The games have to pass our bug checking process, but that's the only screening that we're doing."

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/06/27/reggie-on-his-big-plans-for-a-little-nintendo-wiiware.aspx

That seems pretty concise to me.

"[Taken] aback" is right!

What a stupid comment for Fils-Aime to make. Like Nintendo are going to launch a new service to much fanfare, then allow 23 versions of the same "match three" puzzle game to come down the pipe.

And what about mature content? Are we really expected to believe that Nintendo are just going to stand by and allow a brutal, violent game that does succeed in passing the ratings board, just turn up on the new channel unchecked?

[Where's the 'pony crap' smiley gone?]

[SpiderMonkey]

What a stupid comment for Fils-Aime to make. Like Nintendo are going to launch a new service to much fanfare, then allow 23 versions of the same "match three" puzzle game to come down the pipe.

The market does a reasonable job of regulating this on the PC. I don't see how it would be different on a console. The thing to remember is that Nintendo still has control over the "shelf space" (which incidentally is *the* challenge for broadscale digital distribution, if it is to become something other than just another retailer). They can set whatever parameters they like with that. There might be 23 Bejeweled clones on WiiWare, as I'm sure there are on PC, but you need never know about it.

[BooJaka]

I imagine the "Nintendo Seal of Quality", or whatever it may be called, will play a part in WiiWare games at least just to authorise them

[miffy495]

Namco-Bandai

Oh boy! 115 versions of Pac Man!

[nsps]

The market does a reasonable job of regulating this on the PC. I don't see how it would be different on a console. The thing to remember is that Nintendo still has control over the "shelf space" (which incidentally is *the* challenge for broadscale digital distribution, if it is to become something other than just another retailer). They can set whatever parameters they like with that. There might be 23 Bejeweled clones on WiiWare, as I'm sure there are on PC, but you need never know about it.

True. That all depends on how the store interface is set up. Nintendo would have to have both administrators and customers giving input on which games are worthy of prominent positions and which are buried a couple pages down in the "puzzle games" section. It will require a bit of work to avoid lame-ass games being treated with equality, especially if Ninty wants to appear fair. he other danger would be that only the bigger distributors get prominent positioning, and all the indie devs' games get treated the same.

[Marek]

Nintendo not doing any quality control doesn't have to be a negative. In fact, for Nintendo, this is probably good. When Nintendo does commit to quality control, they are likely to be total nazis about it, at least that's how it has been in the past.

Wii devkits are relatively cheap. Too expensive for bedroom coders perhaps, but still very cheap. If anyone is actually serious about making a Wii game, but can't pay for a devkit, all they have to do is harass their uncle or whatever into making an investment. That's how a lot of indies start and I think that's a fair barier to entry.

What all of this requires, though, is a really good WiiWare channel with a lot of filters, tabs and search options. The VC channel is infuriatingly bad and if the WiiWare channel is anything like it then it will fail terribly, since the VC channel succeeds only because the games are already very well known.

Here's hoping they don't fuck up the channel and make it something fun and awesome with a game-like interface like the Mii Channel.