WiiWare Demos Coming (Hopefully)

Post by Al3xand3r (7,135 posts) See mini bio

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Update: The first three demos are up for Europe. FF CC: My Life as a Darklord , Bit.Trip.Beat, and NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits.

Original post: From IGN and wherever else:
"During the Q&A session at a recent earnings briefing, Iwata told investors that Nintendo would begin a test program for WiiWare demos some time this month. The test will cover just a few titles.

According to Iwata, Nintendo is undertaking this test to see if it can get more players shopping on the Wii Shopping Channel."

Then the nay sayers won't have an excuse for not buying some of the great gems on WiiWare (not that it's hard for most "hardcore" gamers to find out if a game's good or not nowadays). I'm quite surprised they'll try this at all. Maybe they will be time limited, kind of like the VC demos included in Brawl only hopefully meatier than that (man I hated how they lasted like a few seconds past the intro screens!). Well, I hope they keep it up.

Edited 1 week, 3 days ago

Post by JJOR64 (6,072 posts) See mini bio

2221 ACH / 40798 P

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They should have done demos in the first place. I guess it's better late then never.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Willy105 (1,797 posts) See mini bio

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There is one thing I don't understand about the Wii's online.

Friend Codes? Understandable, and work fine.

No voice chat? It's a good thing for most people who are familiar with Xbox Live.

NO DEMOS? That's unacceptable. There are no longer any storage problems with the Wii, why don't you make demos!?!

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Al3xand3r (7,135 posts) See mini bio

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@Willy105 said:

"There are no longer any storage problems with the Wii, why don't you make demos!?! "

Yes there are, a game can't exceed your free internal memory space which even if it's totally empty is still less than 512MB as it's first copied there from the SD card and then run (but the process is mostly invisible to the end user so it appears nearly seamless as if it runs from the card). That's enough for some games demos potentially, but not for most of the bigger games that need the demos. I'd guess that's why they do WiiWare demos now since those games are small even in their full version since they conform to the small file size limits. Or, I don't know, maybe they can make demos run off an SD card directly similar to DLC if the read speeds are sufficient (and they could always warn that load times aren't as in the full game if not). But their Virtual Console/WiiWare stuff work like that, getting copied to the internal memory first, but perhaps that's for anti-piracy measures, which a demo doesn't need. Well who knows, clearly so far they don't think they need demos to sell games and demos only are offered as that, a marketing tool. It's too bad we don't even get the occasional promotional disc. We'll see.

Edited 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Linkyshinks (6,910 posts) See mini bio

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@JJOR64:

The lack of adequate storage prevented the possibility.

Would be nice.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Meowayne (2,868 posts) See mini bio

453 ACH / 8467 P

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Too little, too late.

Demos of Wiiware and retail titles could potentially have saved the Wii from its bad reputation among gamers, especially those who by default refuse to try anything that is not developed by Nintendo. There are so many, so unbelievably many games that us Wii gamers know or strongly suspect people to like immensely if they only tried them out, or would even know of their existance.

Imagine what the Wii's userbase and reputation would be like if Nintendo would provide the gaming world with non-commital trial versions of games like DeBlob, LostWinds, Little King's Story, Extraction, Excitebots, A Boy And His Blob, and even the likes of Rayman Raving Rabbids or Wii Fit!

*pulls out hair*

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Meowayne (2,868 posts) See mini bio

453 ACH / 8467 P

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Storage space is no excuse. I imagine magazines would gladly ship with discs full of retail, wiiware and VC trial versions.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Al3xand3r (7,135 posts) See mini bio

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@Meowayne said:

"Imagine what the Wii's userbase and reputation would be like if Nintendo would provide the gaming world with non-commital trial versions of games like DeBlob, LostWinds, Little King's Story, Extraction, Excitebots, A Boy And His Blob, and even the likes of Rayman Raving Rabbids or Wii Fit!"

It would be very similar to what it is today, I'm sorry. You do know most of that "bad reputation" is from people who don't even have a Wii, yes? As for the minority who does, they'd be just as stubborn even if demos existed. They don't criticise the library because they don't know Little King's Story and such are great games due to the lack of demos, they criticise it because they think it's cool, smart, edgy, whatever.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Meowayne (2,868 posts) See mini bio

453 ACH / 8467 P

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No, I really think the majority of the "haters" have a Wii sitting at home, "collecting dust" as they are so proud to announce, because they would never go and buy a game that doesn't have guns on the cover. Not because they wouldn't enjoy the games, but because its so easy to dismiss them. They would try demos.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by oldschool (4,470 posts) See mini bio

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It certainly can't hurt.

I have downloaded a couple of 360 demos, but to be honest, it doesn't really bother me as I already know what I plan to buy. It must be a good idea for some people though. Considering the shovelware around, it could be a mistake to let some people try it first - they will never buy it after that.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Godwind (1,572 posts) See mini bio

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Perhaps Nintendo will be venturing into Cloud computing before Microsoft and Sony release their next consoles? It sounds like the most likely case.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Willy105 (1,797 posts) See mini bio

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@Godwind said:

" Perhaps Nintendo will be venturing into Cloud computing before Microsoft and Sony release their next consoles? It sounds like the most likely case. "

In related news, where is Onlive? They haven't been heard from at all.

Reminds me of the guy that was making 3D technology using the Wiimote for the Wii, but was hired by Microsoft to make Natal.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Godwind (1,572 posts) See mini bio

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@Willy105 said:

" @Godwind said:
" Perhaps Nintendo will be venturing into Cloud computing before Microsoft and Sony release their next consoles? It sounds like the most likely case. "
In related news, where is Onlive? They haven't been heard from at all. Reminds me of the guy that was making 3D technology using the Wiimote for the Wii, but was hired by Microsoft to make Natal. "

According to their site, Winter 2009. Technically still Fall.

http://www.onlive.com/service/faq.html

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Claude (3,279 posts) See mini bio

245 ACH / 3967 P

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I like demos. Bring it on.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Godwind (1,572 posts) See mini bio

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@Claude said:

" I like demos. Bring it on. "

I like perky boobies. Bring them on.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Claude (3,279 posts) See mini bio

245 ACH / 3967 P

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@Godwind said:

" @Claude said:
" I like demos. Bring it on. "
I like perky boobies. Bring them on. "

There's going to be a perky boobies demo on WiiWare? Awesome.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Godwind (1,572 posts) See mini bio

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@Claude said:

" @Godwind said:
" @Claude said:
" I like demos. Bring it on. "
I like perky boobies. Bring them on. "
There's going to be a perky boobies demo on WiiWare? Awesome. "

Nope, that would be Sexy Poker, lulz.

Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Post by Linkyshinks (6,910 posts) See mini bio

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Here's the full transcript of the Miyamoto Q & A session in English:

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/091030qa/index.html

Posted 3 weeks ago

Post by Linkyshinks (6,910 posts) See mini bio

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@Meowayne said:

" I imagine magazines would gladly ship with discs full of retail, wiiware and VC trial versions. "

Magazines, what magazines?, this isn't the1990's were living in. You simply don't find game demo's on magazine covers any more, for any platform, most CDs these days consist of gameplay footage and interviews. Besides, the magazine market is minuscule, nobody buys them these days, it's not the place to be distributing digital media to a huge global audience.

I doubt very much Nintendo want WiiWare titles be associated with shovelware also.

Edited 2 weeks, 5 days ago

Post by Godwind (1,572 posts) See mini bio

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@Linkyshinks said:

" @Meowayne said:
" I imagine magazines would gladly ship with discs full of retail, wiiware and VC trial versions. "
Magazines, what magazines?, this isn't the1990's we are living in. You simply don't find game demo's on magazine covers any more, for any platform, most CDs these days consist of gameplay footage and interviews. Besides, the magazine market is minuscule, nobody buys them these days, it's not the place to be distributing digital media to a huge global audience. I doubt very much Nintendo want WiiWare titles be associated with shovelware also. "

I thought Britain still had a market for Magazines?

Posted 3 weeks ago

Post by demontium (771 posts) See mini bio

1633 ACH / 25415 P

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@Al3xand3r: why not retail demos?

I mean this would be good, but that would be better.

demos for games that are usually 3 - 5 hours long is questionable.

either way this is a step towards good.

Posted 2 weeks, 6 days ago

Post by Al3xand3r (7,135 posts) See mini bio

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@demontium said:

"@Al3xand3r: why not retail demos?"

A) I'm not Nintendo to answer that, why ask me? B) People have already suggested some plausible reasons for that in this thread, why ask me?

The first three demos are up for Europe. FF CC: My Life as a Darklord , Bit.Trip.Beat, and NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits. Anything up in US/AU stores?

Edited 1 week, 3 days ago

Post by Meowayne (2,868 posts) See mini bio

453 ACH / 8467 P

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@Al3xand3r said:

The first three demos are up for Europe. FF CC: My Life as a Darklord , Bit.Trip.Beat, and NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits. Anything up in US/AU stores? "

A good start, good games. Bit.Trip and Nyxquest in particular are fairly acclaimed Wii titles, and Wii owners now have even less reason to brag about how their consoles are collecting dust.

Posted 1 week, 3 days ago

Post by Alex_V (389 posts) See mini bio

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Great to see.

Somebody mentioned OnLive - they just did another round of funding with a company valuation of £500m. New investors include AT&T. I would say they're fairly serious.

Posted 1 week, 3 days ago

Post by Gamer_152 (1,769 posts) See mini bio

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Sounds pretty cool. Demos can only be a good thing for everyone, right?

Posted 1 week, 3 days ago

Post by Linkyshinks (6,910 posts) See mini bio

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Meh, hopefully the next three will be better. It's good for two of those three games though.

Posted 1 week, 3 days ago

Post by demontium (771 posts) See mini bio

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@Al3xand3r: I wasn't asking you, what I meant is why create a thread about much more micro games when you can be talking about the larger issue?

Posted 1 week, 2 days ago

Post by Al3xand3r (7,135 posts) See mini bio

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You can feel free to ignore any thread that isn't to your standard and create any thread you want yourself. I posted news, not any "issue".

Edited 1 week, 2 days ago

Post by Linkyshinks (6,910 posts) See mini bio

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Japan got World of Goo and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/wiiware/taiken/index.html

Posted 1 week, 2 days ago

Post by JJOR64 (6,072 posts) See mini bio

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Just tried the Nyx demo and I loved it. I might end up getting the actual game since I still have 4,200 points left.

Posted 1 week, 2 days ago

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WiiWare Demos Coming (Hopefully)