Nintendo disputes WiiWare limitations

41 Comments by Scott Jon Siegel Nov 14th 2007 10:56AM
Filed under: Nintendo Wii, Business

Nintendo has issued a statement to Eurogamer, disputing some of the claims regarding its WiiWare service made during an IGN podcast this week. During the podcast, IGN staff members claimed that Nintendo will set a 40MB limitation on the file-sizes of WiiWare titles. They also claimed that Nintendo was limiting developers to one release per month, and that pricing for WiiWare games would be set by developers.

Nintendo denies the 40-megabyte cap on WiiWare titles, stating that the company encourages "smaller, more compact" games for the service, but that it does not set file-size limitations, and expects games of all sizes to be published.

Nintendo is considering limiting developers to one release per month during the service's initial launch, though only to more carefully regulate the volume and traffic during the WiiWare launch window. Regarding pricing, Nintendo asserts that no pricing details have been made official, but that they stand by their goal to deliver "fresh, new content at a low price." How low, we don't know.

Tags: dlc, ign, nintendo, wii, wiiware

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

Todd: Nov 14th 2007; 10:53AM

Uh, if you let developers push out all the titles they want, the service would clearly get bottle necked.

flameofdoom666: Nov 14th 2007; 11:00AM

I want some WiiWare.

Silent Xenocide: Nov 14th 2007; 11:04AM

So when is this slated to come out? Maybe I will have a reason to boot up my Wii now.

Karen: Nov 14th 2007; 11:25AM

You have to troll better then that the week Mario Galaxy came out. Try harder next time.

Night Elve: Nov 14th 2007; 1:58PM

Pss pss hey man! Don't attack Nintendo people will get mad and furious in this lands.

You are only allowed to talk trash about PlayStation 3.

Night Elve: Nov 14th 2007; 2:00PM

these*

Jon: Nov 14th 2007; 11:08AM

Sounds familiar to the license limit on NES games back when Nintendo were dominant... Not as harsh but maybe not yet.

Dig: Nov 15th 2007; 11:14PM

Makes since to me. The reason Nintendo had that policy when they were the only game in town was so that game companies were forced to make a few awesome games instead of dozens of mediocre ones. Then those games would earn the coveted Nintendo Seal of Approval on the box.

Ants: Nov 14th 2007; 11:09AM

awsome! WiiWare might be the first time ill actually buy something with my Wii! Im not into the VC since i still have my games from when i was a kid. I hope Nintendo thinks of other neat downloading services! "wiiware demos.hinthint. ^.^"

megaStryke: Nov 14th 2007; 12:20PM

Really? You have ALL those games? There's like, what, 150+ games on the VC already spanning the NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, TG16, and NeoGeo? You own every single one of them? Really? You gonna eBay your massive collection anytime soon?

B1gC72: Nov 14th 2007; 6:04PM

im guessing that means he has all the games he would want to play. you that can happen, right? i only bought games i never played before on the VC.....so i could eventually realize that old school games in general are not nearly as fun as i remember them. well to me at least.

so stop being a douche cause not everyone is jumping at the bit to pay money for games they've already bought and played before.

B1gC72: Nov 14th 2007; 6:05PM

*you know that can happen, right?

Ants: Nov 14th 2007; 6:07PM

lol yea thats what i meant! thx for clearin that up for me!

Burnt Meatloaf: Nov 14th 2007; 11:04PM

* "Really? You have ALL those games? There's like, what, 150+ games on the VC already"

Like Nintendo said, they are all about fresh, new content.

baby sea tuna: Nov 14th 2007; 11:10AM

So, are they gonna let us save these to SD cards or are we stuck with the 512MB of flash mem that the Wii comes with? Cause I'm almost out of that as it is.

Burnt Meatloaf: Nov 14th 2007; 11:06PM

Hey, cool it, man! How much flash memory do you expect a company to give you if you're getting and overclocked Gamecube for $250?

alex: Nov 14th 2007; 11:14AM

Wii is almost perfect, its online service sucks, its memory to save games too.

Silent Xenocide: Nov 14th 2007; 11:16AM

What is good about it exactly then?

Lemmiwinks: Nov 14th 2007; 12:58PM

These neat little things called "games."

WiNG: Nov 14th 2007; 11:16AM

So, if there IS NO cap, then really come on.

"Wii" really need SD card playability and external (even proprietary) HDD support.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School): Nov 14th 2007; 11:19AM

I could see no HDD if they allowed SD card playability. That would make complete sense. The only other thing they could/should do is increase the max readable size of the SD card from 2 gb to 16.

Then we wouldn't need a HDD. There aren't enough VC games on the planet to fill up 16 gig.

Mr Khan: Nov 14th 2007; 4:34PM

At this juncture, i'm calling Proprietary HDD, because the only reason Nintendo has for disallowing SD playback is DRM concerns

If Nintendo made a proprietary USB HDD, they could make it, like, GameCube levels of incompatible with anything else, that would negate the worries, they would make a profit, and be able to sell more stuff

it would be win/win/win

Paul P.: Nov 14th 2007; 11:17AM

They need to give us USB hard drive support.

Even SD cards are just not nearly big enough. And writing to an SD card takes forever. And you can't play games directly off of an SD card.

alex: Nov 14th 2007; 11:20AM

Its games are funny and controller is easy to use. VC has a luxury catalogue and Mii are better than 360's avatars.

The main problem is the online service, few games support and friends codes sucks. VC is limited by 512mb, I stopped buying games when I knew I was unable to store them in a SD card.

Is Nintendo so afraid of piracy? I think they shouldn't.

samfish: Nov 14th 2007; 11:26AM

"Nintendo denies the 40-megabyte cap on WiiWare titles, stating that the company encourages "smaller, more compact" games for the service, but that it does not set file-size limitations, and expects games of all sizes to be published."

They're not DENYING it, though. It's not even a non-denial denial, really.

ThornedVenom: Nov 14th 2007; 11:29AM

HDD PLZ

WiNG: Nov 14th 2007; 11:34AM

Is there a physical reason Wii can't run games off an SD card? Just wondering. If that's the case we don't need HDD, I mean it's not that annoying to swap a 2GB SD card once every couple MONTHS.

James: Nov 14th 2007; 11:35AM

So Microsoft puts a limit on their download service, despite having HDD's from 20-120gb, and Nintendo have no file size limit on it's 512mb internal and unlimited via SD.

Mad.

IslandLife: Nov 14th 2007; 11:50AM

And Sony has no filesize limit nor hard drive limit.

And oh yes I'm sure we'll hear the obligatory:
AND SONY HAS NO GAMES!!HAR! HAR!!

Vigi: Nov 14th 2007; 12:05PM

THIS...IS...NEXT GEN!

Rob Accomando: Nov 14th 2007; 12:17PM

i agree, Wii need ext. hdd support or playable from the SD card AND demos. I not going to spend non-refundable money on a game that turns out to be crapware. Can't soley rely on reviews either.

Rob Accomando: Nov 14th 2007; 12:19PM

oops sowwy for my bad engrish

Kevin: Nov 14th 2007; 12:47PM

Right now the 2GB SD Card in my Wii isn't being used, and the USB ports on the back aren't being used either. I hope that Nintendo realizes that if they release new games and software for download on the Wii that take up 40+ MB that they will need to allow some form of external storage. Even if they only allowed flash drives to be used and formated it with a proprietary file system so it couldn't be read in other devices, or released a drive that used a proprietary file system, it would be better.
So long as they don't try and release a Wii++ with built in Hard Drive or extra internal flash memory, cause that would be an easy way for them to piss off the 10+ million people who already have a Wii.

hvnlysoldr: Nov 14th 2007; 1:07PM

I believe the key words are Launch Window. Leaving themselves open for easing the limit restrictions and put out a hard drive at a later time. Also regarding the limit, the IGN podcast had said Nintendo would give an incentive to lower size by giving the profits faster. Say 5000 downloads until Nintendo gives money for a 12MB game. But it takes 9000 downloads until Nintendo gives money for a 40MB game. Also the once a month limit means a game on the servers, if a game bombs they can replace the game with another still only having one game on the servers.

idioteraser: Nov 14th 2007; 1:53PM

1 game per month per publisher. Not one a month period. This means the publishers would put up their quality titles first. Already there are over 100 admitted wiiware projects with more coming all the time.

hvnlysoldr: Nov 14th 2007; 2:41PM

oops. I meant 1 game per month per publisher.

Mr Khan: Nov 14th 2007; 4:38PM

The fact that Nintendo misses the idea that they could put out a proprietary HDD (which they and the consumers would both like), profit off of it (which they would like), give more space (which consumers would like), and allow for more sales (which everyone would like) boggles the mind

Sometimes i'm not sure they like money...

Burnt Meatloaf: Nov 14th 2007; 11:15PM

There are reasons why Nintendo is making people pay for Ethernet network adapters but not hard drives.

Most of them boil down to a hard drive attachment not being profitable enough in the long run.

Ants: Nov 14th 2007; 11:09PM

totally off topic but*

How does the online on PS3 work? Does it use something similar to friend codes or similar to 360? Or is it totally different? Or is there no way to have online friendlists? i have no idea since i dont have it.

Burnt Meatloaf: Nov 14th 2007; 11:20PM

I haven't tried multiplayer yet, but it does appear to work like Microsoft's system. You sign up under a username, rather than a "code". You have a friend list and a block list.

All I can tell you is that downloadable content and the design of the Playstation Store is infuriatingly stupid. Navigation through the Store is a nightmare. Most online games don't have demos. After downloading a product, you have to install it, which takes forever. In fact, everything has to be downloaded, including trailers and other videos.

Ants: Nov 14th 2007; 11:22PM

lol i had no idea. thx

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