WiiWare to launch March 25 in Japan

by Scott Jon Siegel { Mar 11th 2008 at 7:00AM }

The official Japanese launch date for Nintendo's WiiWare service has been announced, and it's... soon. The service will become available March 25, nearly two months before the North American release, and exactly two weeks from today.

Nine titles will be available at launch, including Everybody's Pokémon Ranch, Star Soldier R, and Dr. Mario & Bacillus Extermination. Square Enix's My Life as a King: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is also slated for launch release in Japan, and will notably cost 1,500 Wii points, 500 more than any other title.

More images and details can be found on Nintendo of Japan's site, but check out a quick rundown of launch titles and prices after the break.

[Via Game|Life]

Okiraku Ping-Pong Wii (Arc System Works, 500 points)
Word Puzzle Mojipittan Wii (Bandai Namco, 1000 points)
Sakusaku Animal Panic (Konami, 1000 points)
Star Soldier R (Hudson, 800 points)
My Life As A King: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Square Enix, 1500 points)
Angel's Solitaire (G-Mode, 500 points)
Dr. Mario & Bacillus Extermination (Nintendo, 1000 points)
Everybody's Pokemon Ranch (Nintendo, 1000 points)
Lonpos (Genki, 1000 points)

[Title and developer translations via Game|Life]

Tags: breaking-news, breakingnews, wiiware

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Nigeria @ Mar 11th 2008 7:06AM

Hello, this is Europe calling. Remember us.

We'd like this. It looks nice.

We're also Brawless, but that's ok. We're kinda small on the map. Could we have a release date please.

Your Pals, Europe (and Australia)

Jtenma @ Mar 11th 2008 7:25AM

Damn, I forgot you guys don't have BRAWL yet. It is simply an awesome game too!

Jody Anthony (Good Eats Fanboy) @ Mar 11th 2008 7:35AM

I cannot wait for that Dr. Mario game.

Anticrawl @ Mar 11th 2008 8:26AM

Is the Dr. Mario game a traditional Dr. Mario game? If so sign me up sir.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Mar 11th 2008 8:47AM

Yes, and no.

Its the same gameplay, but with expanded multiplayer and Mii support.

DonWii @ Mar 11th 2008 9:05AM

And an All-Wiimote Mode, plays like Virus Buster on Brain Age 2.

ThePremierAssassin @ Mar 11th 2008 8:41AM

How exactly will this work? You download the ENTIRE game onto your Wii and then play it?

Plus you've got to pay to get the game right?

I mean it may just be me but won't people run out of space on their Wii's real fast?

Erwos @ Mar 11th 2008 8:44AM

That's why you put it on the SD card, methinks.

I'm very much looking forward to Crystal Chronicles and Dr. Mario (especially if the latter has online play).

ThePremierAssassin @ Mar 11th 2008 8:49AM

Thats just retarded...so by the end of this generation we'll all just have a bunch of SD cards lying around with who knows which games on them?

This could all have been much simpler if Nintendo put a nice lil hard drive in the Wii...

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Mar 11th 2008 9:06AM

I'm pretty sure you're going to have a hell of a hard time filling up a 2 gb SD card with 40 mb+ games.

Organic_Shadow @ Mar 11th 2008 10:16AM

That's what I was going to ask. Will we be able to run them off the SD card? If so, no biggie, but if not, then Nintendo has fouled up again, but don't expect the fanboys to admit it. They'll act super happy that they have to swap out files between the SD card and Wii memory just to play/access something.

Until I can run them off an SD card im not doing Wii ware. Nintendo tricked me into it with all the vconsole excitement but they won't do it again.

Can't be flippin' SD cards, joggin', and drinkin' mah sip...

Phillip @ Mar 11th 2008 11:09AM

I don't think you can download the games to the SD card. I remember all the hoopla about this when it was announced but you can just re download the game if you need more room. Plus I think you can move the downloaded channels to the SD cards so I'll definitely do that.

Phil

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Mar 11th 2008 11:09AM

While I agree that an external solution is required, access times off the SD card are so damn slow it would make this a near impossibility.

SD cards are not flash. Remember that.

Now, it would work if nintendo dedicated aobut 100-200 meg of the internal memory for buffer space, and when you launched an app off the SD card, it would take a few minutes to load the whole thing into internal memory.

But that may take way too long also. The best solution is an external HDD or flash drive, but that will never happen.

Kye NFC: 7016 - 9552 - 1191 - 8991 @ Mar 11th 2008 12:29PM

Organic Shadow,

As Leader of the Nintendo Defence Force, I can assure you that even we bitch and complain about their choices in regards to the storage media/limits and online capabilities of the Wii.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Mar 11th 2008 9:36AM

I fully support Wiiware.

But it's as if they didn't give a crap about memory limitations: SD cards are nice, but USB external harddrives are better.

/repetitive chant.

Jhongerkong @ Mar 11th 2008 10:07AM

Star Soldier R for 800pts = awesome

Pokemon Ranch for anything other than free = do not want

PojoMofo @ Mar 11th 2008 12:49PM

Right now, the Wii does not have the capablity to play games directly from the SD card. They could do it with a firmware update I assume, but right now they cant. They havent done it yet to make life easier for VC games, so why change now?

So think the SD cards are an issue, because you have to download the game to the internal 512MB memory, then copy it to the SD card to store it. If you want to play it again. You have to copy it back from the SD card to the main memory. Seems like a pain. $10-$15 for these games seem a little high to me as well.

I also doubt many of them will have WiFi support.