A Critical Analysis of Nintendo's Wiiware Service

When the Wii was announced, one of the main selling points of it apart from the name and the motion controls was the downloadable content service in two forms: Virtual Console and Wiiware. Virtual Console allows players to play games from classic Nintendo consoles in addition to games from other consoles like Sega Genesis, NEC TurboGrafx-16 and SNK NeoGeo. Wiiware on the other hand is for new original low-budget software ranging from $5 to $15. Many developers big and small have released titles on Wiiware from Konami, Square Enix and Telltale Games to smaller independent companies like Gaijin Games. Both Microsoft and Sony have similar services under the names of XBox Live Arcade and Playstation Store respectively. Both the Wii's Virtual Console and Wiiware service add a lot of playability to the system, but the Wiiware service is not without a number significant faults.

First there is the online community of the Wii itself. Yes, there are games on the Wii with online play such as GoldenEye 007 and Call of Duty: Black Ops which feature online matchmaking. But as far as actual communication goes, sending messages to other Wii users requires friend codes, playing a game with someone requires that game's friend code. Real-time communication in-game can only be done with the Wii Speak accessory and very few games support it. Online gaming on the Wii is comparable to being blindfolded, gagged, given a stick and told where the piñata is after being spun a few times. There essentially is no online community for the Wii itself appart from silly channels like Everybody Votes and Check Mii Out. Compare this to services like Steam which feature friend lists, player made communities, dedicated servers, in-game chatting, and the ability to easily join in many online games that friends are playing.

Another major problem is the actual games and quality thereof. As far as actual downloadable game libraries goes, Steam trumps XBox Live Arcade, Playstation Store and Wiiware put together. This is due to the fact that Steam contains big budget games (like Mass Effect and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) in addition to smaller budget titles like indie games, casual games and older computer/console games. But disregarding the big budget titles, Wiiware still suffers when compared to Steam's low budget titles. It's true that the Wiiware has some really good original titles like Lit, Cave Story, the Bit.Trip series and anything by Shin'en Multimedia, but for every good Wiiware game there's a mediocre and really bad Wiiware game like Fireplacing and 5 Arcade Gems. La-Mulana seems like one of the most promising titles for Wiiware, but it has yet to be released despite being already finished. Notable games on Wiiware like Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, World of Goo and Sonic 4 are easily available elsewhere. Many of the games that started as Wiiware exclusives like Bit.Trip, the Cave Story remake and Toki Tori have since then become available on Steam. One would also think that the low-budget nature of the Wiiware service would make it prime grounds for indie games and popular casual games. Popcap's library would be excellent for the system, but as it turns out, the only Popcap game on Wiiware is Bejeweled 2. Not Blitz or Twist or 3, but 2. You will find no Peggle, no Zuma, or Plants Vs. Zombies on Wiiware which is a shame. Wiiware also has a severe lack of Indie games compared to Steam and Desura, but part of this could be because the development kit for Wiiware costs around 2000 USD.

Which brings me to another point about Wiiware, the restrictions of the service itself. To be on Wiiware, a game needs to be under a certain file size, roughly under 43 megabytes. If a game is over that amount, it needs to be compressed which is not an easy task when your game is pretty large. This is incredibly restrictive for many games and is the primary reason why Super Meat Boy, a game that would have been perfect for Wiiware and despite being released on XBox Live Arcade, ultimately canceled its planned release for Wiiware. The game was simply too large to compress to the desired amount. Some developers do manage to handle compression fine as was the case with MDK2, but this is the exception, not the rule. Buying Wiiware titles carries with it another restriction. You can't just simply buy titles with money as you wish. Acquiring titles first requires buying points in increments of 1000 (2000 if you're buying a card). Point are roughly a dollar for every 100 points. On Wiiware no title is under 500 Wii points (the equivalent of $5) which seems to indicate a minimum price. This a real sticking point with Wiiware since on Desura you can find games of higher quality than the 500 point titles for under $5. Point prices of Wiiware items are also fixed. Compare this to prices of items on Steam. On Steam no price is ever fixed. A $60 game will eventually drop in price with enough time and there are always daily deals, bundles and periodical sales of items especially around holidays. Fallout New Vegas for only $5? It can happen on Steam. Sales never happen on Wiiware. Pokémon Rumble will always be 1500 Wii points even if the game is bland and repetitive. Some games on Steam and Desura are even released for free such as Spiral Knights, Alien Swarm and Team Fortress 2. How many free games can you name on Wiiware?

Nintendo is a sort of 500 pound gorilla. They were first to bring the industry out of the great videogame crash of 1983 but have since then been slow on the curve in many facets. They were the last to abandon the use of cartridges, the last to go online, have yet to include a hard disk on any of their consoles, and their graphics are a step below the competition. But for all their stubbornness, Nintendo was successful in opening the doors to motion control, 3D without glasses, and mass acceptance of video games to non-gamers. Also, Nintendo has a lot of successful franchises noted for their quality like Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Metroid, Donkey Kong, and Starfox among others. Nintendo can justify its decissions because it knows that there will always be a fanbase for their first-party products. Ultimately though Nintendo's third party and downloadable service suffers because of the severe limitations of the platform and the service itself. Don't get me wrong, I love some of the titles on Wiiware, but the fact remains that Wiiware pales in comparison to the competition. We will never see quality downloadable games like Dungeon Defenders, Spiral Knights, Cthulhu Saves the World, Bionic Commando Rearmed, or Super Meat Boy on the Wiiware and ultimately this is what most upsets me with Nintendo's backwards downloadable content service.

First post.

Hello, I am The Gran Faust and this is my blog. I will use this to speak about things on my mind but for the moment, have a quote from CS Lewis.

 "Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."