Nintendo’s Thoughts on WiiWare
- Scribbled on February 23rd, 2009 by Jonathon Howard
- Filed in Industry News, Nintendo Wii, WiiWare
If you’ve bothered following the releases schedule for Nintendo’s WiiWare, then you already know that the service has been mostly a provider of shovelware and another location for mobile phone developers to sell their subpar games – ironic that back in March of last year, WiiWare devs claimed, “Xbox Live Arcade is full of shit.” Nintendo has been in denial about the service since it’s launch; the fact that Nintendo lacks an on-line strategy has been obvious to everyone but them for a long time. That might be changing soon though.
According to Tom Prata, Nintendo’s senior director of project development, Nintendo has realized that there are problems with their WiiWare service.
“WiiWare is not magic, and digital is not perfect. I think that there’s more that Nintendo can do to support (WiiWare games). This year, Nintendo will increase resources for development and promotion.”
It’s nice that they’ve finally recognized the problem more than two years after it was apparent to everyone else. I don’t see how their going to fix anything without a serious attempt at quality control. I don’t see that happening anytime soon though – Nintendo has yet to bother with quality control on the Wii, which has also become a prime destination of shovelware. I also wonder if Nintendo even knows what their users want from their download services. If Virtual Console can be used as a guide, the answer to that question is no. Week after week, games no one wants are put on Virtual Console while such gems as Earthbound remain unreleased.
In conclusion, all I can say is that I’m glad they’re looking closer at WiiWare, but I’m not optimistic about the results.
(Thanks, Nintendo Everything.)
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