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KingBroly
Rank: ModeratorJoined: Apr 07
Wii Code:7772-0280-1154-0427
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November 3, 2009 by The News Team
Filed Under: Wii, Nintendo in general, WiiWare
Holy crap...Nintendo might actually be getting with the times! In their investor question and answer session, Satoru Iwata announced that Nintendo will run a test WiiWare demo service that will offer demos for select games. This test will take place to see if WiiWare sales can be raised, and to gain more attention for the service. No word on this test coming stateside at this time. Thanks to DSkartmasta and TheKingUpNorth for the heads up!
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Not me, particularly: as I buy every cool seeming WiiWare. I guess there are a few I wouldn't have gotten, but I have tons and only a few 'takebacks' out of that is a good deal.
This is a good thing, I hope. Hopefully it is only for a few games, and doesn't force small devs to spend a ton of money on demos.
Hopefully it's similar to Xbox Live Arcade trials and they are free to download.
something that should had happened;.... eeeeerrrr, huuuuh, happened
"Its the end of the world, as you know it" (8)
I don't see how a demo is any more money spent.
All games on XBLA and I assume PSN have them.
In any case, I'm excited by this.
You really think 512 MB is enough to store a full demo of a retail game?
Oh yeah, you can use high-capacity SD cards now.
I thought that was Excitebike.
Then again I could've used a demo service for alot of disc based Wii games.
Demos help for me, I've bought a few XBLA games I wouldn't think of buying with demos.
I buy WiiWare games often so it won't really affect me but still, I love having something new to play when I have no money, even if it is just a 15 minute demo.
Bring it on
I can see how others might be happy about this, though...
@terryxlr
Why can't you use the shop channel? I couldn't get into the shop channel or Wii system menu a while ago and had my Wii replaced due to that.
Well, I can go to the shop channel if I update my Wii, but my Wii has everything I could ever want right now, and I don't want to lose it. It works perfectly fine.
This is ironic to say about one of the only companies who are seeing any real success this gen.
Who will really make use of it? we know third parties will, but nintendo themselves may be afraid of it for some reason.
what games will be on demo? for the DS you got mostly casual but very rarely could we see core games
why only wiiware? couldnt they do this for retail games too?
when would the demos be availible? before the game releases or after?
how? this would probably be done similar to DS demos (on the nintendo channel)
I am not confident.
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If anything it'll prove to be a good filter of crap games.
No longer will you crap like sexy poker on the boards when people can try the games.
I don't think it would help sales for ALL wiiware per say, but it would help sales for the good games. There would be less guessing on the consumers behalf figuring out what's good and what isn't.
Yes, we all know the good games because we go to these sites, but most Wii owners don't so they have no clue that Lost Winds is better than say Real Fishing.
To REALLY boost WiiWare sales, they need to actually market it. Not lame cards in Wii games or ads for people who already participate online. Like actual promotions for the service in advertisements.
EU did this really well, with the digital content show they just had and doing the ambassador program.
That needs to come to NA.
That was excitebike.
WiiWare demos make sense, they can stay pretty small and still fit in the 512MB of storage pretty well. Wii game demos themselves probably wont happen because a demo could easily fill the 512MB of internal storage.
Maybe even that will change at some point if they address the security of the storage device with their own 1st party storage medium.
So very happy, hopefully they do one for Excitebike! I would love to see how the gameplay is like, as I only briefly played it on Animal Crossing way back when. ;D
Fro~
I wonder how much WiiWare sales will fall in accordance with the 'special' demo titles?
I know I'll be burned at the stake here for even mentioning an obvious negativity of demos, but they do cause a sizeable amount of folk to then not buy the final game, which wouldn't cripple a well known console IP, but an original IP on the WW/PSN/XBLA platforms? Very possibly so.
Just sayin'.
Several games I didn't buy becasue I couldn't test them.
Still, this is awesome. I assume they'd include an option in the Wii Shop Channel to download the demos, and then you can provide feedback through the Nintendo Channel.
In that case 99% of the demo downloads will not result in a sale.
About 99.9999999999 of DS games do not have demos.
Do you rent games? 5 dollars is fine for a rental of one game right?
Used to be demos you would have to pay for them.
Yep and most of the games whose sales fall are in fact decent games. The thing is a demo more often then not backfires unless the demo is directly directed for the game and does a good job.
Timed trials bad idea, limited level demos are also terrible. Putting out a demo before the game is out often results in a lot of botched sales because the demo is quite terrible.
Used to be that worked for pc game demos of pc games that were in the several gig range. Of course sales for those games often tanked since the demos didn't do a good job.
Or used a f*** rental service. Let me guess you don't like old style pc adventure games that were point and click.
Then you wouldn't have liked Monkey Island to begin with. I never fall for hype 99.9999 of time I have never used a demo for a game and 99% of the time I relied on impressions, previews, reviews and then my brain to form my bying decisions. The result was only one bad game out of a 1000.
On the other hand whenever I demo a game 99.99999 of the time I don't buy it. Xbox live statistics back up the fact that only one out of a 100,000 demo downloads leads to a sale yet when a game isn't demo they have far greater sales of that title until the demo comes out then sales plumment.
Just like the homebrew channel beta. It IS documented in the wiibrew wiki how the demo/time limit works for the channels.
You will see.
That is one possibility but due to it being selected titles suggests there is a bit more effort being put into it. Still I can totally see VC demos being done like that.
@The_Dude1212
ONM actually said no to this despite lots of readers wanting it. why? ONM claim readers don't want it, it isn't fair to DS owners and would make the magazine cost more (yet other free gifts don't do this?).
Exactly.
I seem to remember one game on the HD systems in particular having a great momentum, until its demo was released, then its sales went to hell.
As with everything in life, with the good comes the bad and with the bad comes... you know.
I'm not looking forward to the inevitable fallout here once this demo test scheme is described in full.
If I remember correctly, Nintendo Power had a survey that asked a question like "Would you like to have game demos packaged with your subscription, even if it meant the cost of the subscription went up?".
I said yes, of course. The subscription is so cheap now that it's hard not to like that idea.
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Actually they often do make the magazine cost more if DVDs are shipped with it unless they eat the loss which could bankrupt them.
Homebrew right? See I only have import games and you won't lose the feature to play them, but other homebrew like DVD, etc. will be blocked.
Or better still. If you're using homebrew you could just use something like Wiiscu to update the shop channel and be on your way. No having to reinstall, replace or whatever...
Although I know Nintendo's marketing team will somehow screw this up by not actually promoting this, making only the hardcore know of its existence.
@Traviswiifan
What? you get way more than 5 minutes.
Don't go celebrating just yet. If they really are going ahead with demos, it's because they see that the expanded audience wants it (and not you cores), so don't expect the same kind of setup that you'll find on PC and the 360/PS3. I'm sure you people will find a way to complain about it once information comes out.
i.e. If these demos don't spur on sells [which a sizeable amount actually differ folk from buying, which would be crippling on the mostly new IPs / small businesses on WiiWare] then they'll drop it in an instant.
Nintendo consoles will also never get demos I predict [because of my aforementioned con].
I don't really care. As long as they give you a little bit of time to play the game to get a little taste of it, it will serve its purpose.
@Chosenoneknuckles
They won't know until they implement the test, so I say bring it to try it out. Let's see how it does in Japan.
I have TOTALLY bought Live Arcade and PSN games JUST because the demo knocked my socks off.
Do it, Nintendo.
Yes, we get it.. We core don't matter, you casuals rule the world.
It's a good thing for both type of gamers anyways so get the sticks out of your ass.
I need some Wiiware.
Well no duh. I figured it was obvious that I meant that if it was an utter failure in Japan, then it wouldn't head west. Simples.
I absolutely hate when people say that, i hope Nintendo never does it just because of it.
In fact I hope every company dealing with games stops doing it. That will be the new "getting with the times".
I said 5 minutes OR SO meaning some have more but not all of them.
Plus 1 demo I got was less then A minute. I bought the full game to find out more And I wouldn't consider that a game.
You just read 10 minutes of text(japanese text) and wait for credits. I got It thinking hey, hentai! However else I did something wrong the worst this could be is bad langue and/or suggestive theme
Their another japanese trial game that seemed fun (You use this claw to latch onto platform and swing on them.) but 5 minutes isn't enough to decide(An estimation)
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