No this isn’t a hack for your Wii, this is a new channel that Nintendo will be releasing soon that contains new independent games available for download. Obviously this is an attempt to compete with Xbox Live Arcade as well as the PS3 online service.
The question is how will Nintendo differentiate itself from the competition, not only in variety of games, but in how they help indie developers create games for their system. It isn’t clear where exactly Nintendo wants to take this channel. If they want the support of hobbyists like Microsoft is doing with XNA. If Nintendo is, then they’ve got a lot of work ahead of them.
Considering the amount of retro games that have been downloaded since launch – over 4 million – via the Virtual Console, WiiWare could be a great addition to help the industry create some very unique and original titles.
Hopefully all of these new games will not be mini-game related… This announcement also brings up the issue of storage. Who really wants to have tons of memory cards full of random games? Hopefully Nintendo will release a harddrive attachment. 🙄
“It isn’t clear where exactly Nintendo wants to take this channel.”
It isn’t clear to them either, don’t worry.
This really is the first exciting news I’ve heard about the Wii since they said it was “backwards compatible” with every previous Nintendo system. Buttholes.
True. Iwata said a couple years ago at GDC that Nintendo was going to support indie developers. So technically all this announcement is about is Nintendo saying that it has a title for the channel! 😯