Nintendo: No demos required for Wii Ware titles
by Kyle Orland 
{ Feb 20th 2008 at 6:44PM }
We've been annoyed with the Wii's lack of downloadable Virtual Console demos for quite a while now, so we probably shouldn't be too surprised that Nintendo has declared games in their upcoming Wii Ware service will not be required to have downloadable demos. Surprised isn't really the world ... slightly miffed is more like it.We're only slightly miffed because Nintendo hasn't quite banned demos from the service. In an interview with Newsweek's N'gai Croal, Nintendo of America director of project development Tom Prata said that "having demos [is] ... not a requirement from Nintendo." If we're reading that right, that means demos would be allowed on the service, but that they won't necessarily be available for every game.
The decision to forgo a demo mandate was made, according to Prata, because demos are a "very costly type of endeavor" for a developer. That might be true in the short term, but overall we wonder if developer can afford not to have demos on a service like this. After all, Xbox Live Arcade has managed just fine by requiring developers to create those "expensive" demos -- in fact, by, early stats showed about 20 percent of XBLA demo players bought the full game, leading directly to increased revenue for all involved. Still, we guess giving developers more choice in these matters is usually a good thing. We just hope many developers will choose to help their customers and themselves by letting us try before we buy.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
motang @ Feb 20th 2008 6:52PM
That really bites, and what about storage, where are we going to store these Wiiware games?
Nick the Hero of Canton @ Feb 20th 2008 6:55PM
Seriously. I am a big time Wii supporter and have loved just about everything Nintendo has made (except the obvious aka VBoy and some dumb peripherals) but, God, it's getting annoying now. No demos, no space to put the games. At least release an external HDD.
loungemonkey @ Feb 20th 2008 6:52PM
Man I would really not like to play Russian roulette like I have to on some PSN titles. Oh well, guess I will just wait for user reviews.
Ben @ Feb 20th 2008 8:28PM
I think that's why there's no demos for VC games... While I don't speak for today's video game generation (and I'm not part of it, as I grew up in the NES days), I think most of the younger Wii VC customers wouldn't bother downloading most of the games if they could have played the demo. Some 10 year old kid sees Pit in the new Smash Bros game and wants to download Kid Icarus, little does he know that he probably wont be able to last 5 minutes in the game and will stop playing... If there was a demo, he never would have downloaded it, losing Nintendo a sale. Multiply that by... a lot, and you do the math.
Nick the Hero of Canton @ Feb 20th 2008 6:53PM
Yay! No, wait, the other thing.
Rob Accomando @ Feb 20th 2008 7:04PM
NO demos? No Storage announcement? WTF Nintendo?
I hope there's a refund policy for garbage games. I don't really want to rely on review sites for Wiiware games.
Dahk @ Feb 20th 2008 7:14PM
Yoda Orland: Surprised, isn't really... the world.
Mr Khan @ Feb 20th 2008 7:17PM
That wasn't unexpected
And it's possible Nintendo could never wake up and figure out that more space is required, or else they may as well scrap DLC period
It will get worse before a solution is offered, but one is probably coming.
mr mobius @ Feb 20th 2008 7:29PM
I've only got 1 N64 and 2 smaller VC games and I'm already conscious because it really is stopping me downloading anything but the very best games. The problem will come when I want these WW games. Most of these games look like worth the money more than the VC games.
Roto13 @ Feb 20th 2008 7:44PM
It amuses me that, even though it's so obvious in the article, a lot of people still don't understand that this statement doesn't mean "no demos."
Burnt Meatloaf @ Feb 21st 2008 4:29PM
Yeah, there's no way past performance would be an indication of the future. We can count on Nintendo to just magically change their mind overnight for no reason, seeing how they're not making any money with their current strategy.
Roto13 @ Feb 21st 2008 4:37PM
What are you even talking about? What past strategy? Nintendo has never had a WiiWare before. Are you talking about no demos of games like Super Mario Galaxy or Smash Bros. Brawl? Those wouldn't fit on in the Wii. Are you talking about no demos of Virtual Console games? Who even needs that? Why spend money to make demos of games when everyone already knows what they're like?
Whatever you're talking about, it sounds like you're missing the point of my comment, which is that Nintendo isn't banning demos from their WiiWare service. They're just not being Microsoft and making it mandatory.
SuperMario21 @ Feb 20th 2008 7:49PM
I think it is a great thing that Nintendo isn't requiring companies to create demos. It gives the developers a choice and it also lowers the cost for making a game for the Wii.
Also for people complaining about the storage on the Wii, you know you can just delete the game after you finish it and redownload it later on. Its not that big of a deal and it really doesn't take that long.
Mr Khan @ Feb 20th 2008 7:54PM
Really depends on when, i did F-Zero X during peak hours and it took a good 20 minutes, while Magician Lord during off hours took on the low side of two
AmishPhysicist @ Feb 20th 2008 7:56PM
That's not the point. People want to always have it around to play whenever. Re-downloading is really not an option. I know I never want to ever have to re-download any VC games I have, especially since the whole process is clunky and slow.
Lynk Former @ Feb 20th 2008 7:59PM
It's funny to read about all of these people who find the 512mb flash memory for Wii as being entirely inadequate...
Right now, I have 29 VC games on my Wii. That's 8 NES, 10 SNES, 8 Genesis and 3 TG16 games... and that's not the complete list of games I have bought from the Wii Shop Channel. In fact, I've bought a tonne of VC games and I'm completely comfortable with the fact that I can delete these games from the memory, keep the save files, and then re-download the games whenever I want because I've already paid for the license to have them on my system.
I also don't bother using the SD card slot, because I really don't need to.
(note: I've bought all of the N64 games released so far on WiiVC but don't have them on my system at the moment because I finished them all therefore don't need to have them on my system at the moment)
~ Lynk
http://forums.thecrisiscenter.net/
Ethan @ Feb 20th 2008 8:59PM
I think a video would be okay. Maybe customer reviews.
Oak @ Feb 20th 2008 9:01PM
I'm not surprised. Nintendo is a very arrogant company. This reminds me of the whole "we don't do online multiplayer" statement they released with the Gamecube.
They need to suck in their pride and just follow someone's advice for once.
MikeG @ Feb 20th 2008 9:41PM
Must have demos! That's what ticks me off about PSN. I LOVE my PS3, but lets face it, the downloadable games on PSN suck so far. And many of the games on there don't have demos. I love the fact that I can make a good, informed decision on which XBLA games I buy.
Dahk @ Feb 20th 2008 10:17PM
That's cuz demo's suck at displaying what a game is capable at. I think they did a perfect job on games like PixelJunk Monsters.
Which btw, is like the most addictive, awesomest PSN game ever.
Jules @ Feb 21st 2008 5:44AM
Wow, am I the only person that thinks a 20% sale rate is a bit poor? I mean that's 80% of people that didn't want to buy your game. And I hope those figures don't include all the free copies of the games that come with the Arcade model of the 360, or for other reasons that microsoft has given away arcade games. Plus that 20% may have bought the game if there was no demo around anyway.
And people really should re-read the artical, especially people like 'Oak' above. Why call Nintendo arrogant when it sounds like it's giving developers a choice of whether to include a demo or not. But we should really wait for an official statement.
I'm fine with there being no demos. I am capable of reading reviews, looking at images, and even video clips on youtube or wherever to come up with some conclusion as to whether it's likely that i'll enjoy a game.
LeChuck @ Feb 21st 2008 7:28AM
I'd really like if they had demos for the VC games. There are SO MANY games on there I never played but vaguely remember hearing about. But I don't want to drop $5-10 on something and find out I don't like it enough to ever touch it again. So I'll only end up buying things I know I want to play. I'd even be willing to pay a buck for the demo if that helped.
rDr4g0n @ Feb 21st 2008 9:12AM
I wish nintendo would quit doing what they think is best and just listen to their freakin customers. Maybe pay attention to the market? They're trying so hard to capture the casual and non gamers that they're leaving the hardcore in the dirt.
i mean seriously... i bought a wii this weekend (after calling 15 different stores daily for 2 months) and cmon... a 16 digit numerical friend code?
Matt @ Feb 21st 2008 10:31AM
Nintendo really has to come out with demo downloads if they want to compete in that space at all. Not having them for NES games is forgiveable. Not having them for larger games is not, especially all of those TG16 games no one has heard of.
One thing with Nintendo's policy that bothers me is that we have to put our trust in them to always allow us to re-download games that we have purchased and deleted for storage. Do you really want to put that trust in Nintendo? I am a huge Nintendo fan, but I don't. I want to garuntee I can acess a game whenver I want to. I am sure in Nintendo's EULA that have some statement stating they reserve the right to...blah,blah,blah. They have also never promised to transfer those VC purchases , allowing you to redownload them to the next iteration of the Wii. I certainly would not put it past Nintendo to lock our current VC content to just the Wii and not the next console they release.
Mr Khan @ Feb 21st 2008 5:15PM
They'll do something at that point, but thats still a ways away, probably like if you click the "Downloaded" Button under the title under the shop channel, you could have them mark your serial number, then if you remember it for Wii Next, you could enter it and keep track of it all, or something