WiiWare launching in March, according to developer

by Scott Jon Siegel { Jan 10th 2008 at 8:00AM }

Nintendo has kept awfully quiet about their upcoming WiiWare service, but third-party developer Engine Software seems to have no problem going on record with the launch date. According to Engine, the service is scheduled to launch this March, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Engine Software, who acquired a Wii Developer's License this past October, is currently working on a casual title for release on WiiWare. Entitled Project Bang, the game uses the Wii remote functionality and features one or two-player gameplay. It's a bit bizarre to have a developer so flippantly reveal the launch date of a platform, so we'll wait for word from Nintendo before calling this thing official.

Tags: engine-software, nintendo, project-bang, wiiware

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

DeltaP42 @ Jan 10th 2008 8:06AM

The only thing that worries me about this is that they have put an EXTREMELY small cap on the size that the games can be, which means alot of them are going to be pretty super-simple and lame. Thats my guess anyway.

NATO_Duke @ Jan 10th 2008 10:17AM

The only thing that worries me about this is that there will be more and more lame shovelware and crap games made by nobody little companies with minigame ideas floating in their collective little minds. Thats my guess anyway.

DeltaP42 @ Jan 10th 2008 8:06AM

Psaakyrn @ Jan 10th 2008 8:11AM

What cap? You mean the 40 meg which Nintendo had denied previously?

(Also, the comment system needs to stop breaking. There's getting an obscene number of post by the doppelganger profile 0...)

DeltaP42 @ Jan 10th 2008 8:43AM

I don't necessarily mean the 40meg rumor, but I could see that coming true as well. I'm more concerned with the fact that the Wii has no harddrive and I've already filled my flash memory with VC games. So that means I either decide which VC games I can sacrifice, and download them later, or move a bunch to an SD card, and then swap in and out depending on what games I want to play. It's more of a hassle than it should be and if developers start making some really intense stuff, it's going to take up more and more space. So instead of having 15 or 20 VC games, I get to have 2 or 3 WiiWare original titles. Please Nintendo, just release a mother-f*cking harddrive already!

samfish @ Jan 10th 2008 8:52AM

Knowing Nintendo, they'll push the date back now just to spite them.

Jtenma @ Jan 10th 2008 9:01AM

Is a hard-drive add-on out of the question?

I think an announcement for support for that should come soon...

Psaakyrn @ Jan 10th 2008 9:27AM

Or they can merely suggest using an SD card. (Seriously though, would reading off an SD card be too slow for said games?)

loof @ Jan 10th 2008 10:08AM

It's possible it would be too slow. I know some SD cards have an absolutely terrible read/write rate.

LilCo187 (NDF - Hit a ho with a school bus Ring) @ Jan 10th 2008 9:43AM

It's launching in March alongside the announcment of USB Harddrive compatability, although Nintendo itself will not offer their own brand of Harddrive (just like the keyboard compatability situation).

Leilock @ Jan 10th 2008 10:00AM

Actually, depending on compression games don't have to be HUGE to be beautiful. High quality music and spure high resolution textures and graphic eat up most of the space in a smaller scale game, and that's only if you are looking for a ridiculous level of sound clarity. Newer compressed sound formats are minuscule and sound fine in stereo. That's not even talking about compressed textures. So long as the platform supports something other than .WAV and .BMP It can have good games in a small way.

Rob Accomando @ Jan 10th 2008 11:02AM

I'd rather they just enable 3rd party ext hdd support and not release their own harddrive because they'd probably charge WAY too much $ per MB like Microsoft does. But then again, non techies might get confused.

Joshua @ Jan 10th 2008 11:10AM

But, didn't we already know this?

Worst Review Ever @ Jan 10th 2008 11:20AM

I'm not very techie, but is it hard to enable hard drive support through the usb ports on the back?

Rob Accomando @ Jan 10th 2008 1:28PM

I actually meant the people who would have no clue about what kind of external storage to buy unless it was packaged as a "Wii storage unit" with Wii stickers all over it.

Mr Khan @ Jan 10th 2008 5:04PM

Or they could go with a middle solution like they did with SD cards where 3rd party cards are compatible, but a Nintendo branded one (which yes, is more expensive) is pretty much the only SD card sold in, say, the game accessories section of your local wal-mart

Rob Accomando @ Jan 10th 2008 8:39PM

Yes, I'd go with that option. A Wii branded HDD for Non tech saavy AND the option to use any USB External Hard drive. I really hope they go this route and not what Microsoft has done (as much as I love the 360, I hate what they are charging for $ per Megabyte)