digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About

Nintendo to offer ORIGINAL game downloads for Wii

computerandvideogames.com — A statement made by Hudson Entertainment's director of marketing, John Lee, in an interview with Game Informer, sparked a rumour that Nintendo could be making a new 'Games Channel' for Wii through which it will deliver NEW downloadable games.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 27, 2007

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

48 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • MrBabyMan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31Even if it was a lo-res N64-quality game on par with a Mario Kart or Super Mario 64, that would be worth it. Nintendo doesn't need to wow with graphics if they can wow with playability.
  • TheDiggMan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19@ martinj88:

    The only way I think they can pull it off is if Nintendo makes an external hard drive that connects to the Wii via usb.
  • jet3004, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Oh, okay. Cool.
  • CrispyPassion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Hopefully this will bring a new wave of sidescrollers. I really miss the 2d games. New Super Mario Bros. sure was nice.
  • Diggtatorship, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15@TheDiggMan

    Thats not unfeasible at all. In fact, its almost a given that its going to happen at some point in the future.

    As for me, I've got a 2GB SD card in mine, and I cant see filling it anytime real soon(considering the size of the available games), but in a year or two...
  • aywwts4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12joshmcconaha: I will refrain from insulting you overtly, though the first draft of this comment did...

    First of all, the Wii already plays DVD disks, Thats what a Wii disk is, it just doesn't decode DVD Video. (Playing the video is proprietary and requires royalties to be paid)

    Second, allowing anyone to write code for the disk drive would just allow people to easily write "accept this pirated disk" disks. which is something Nintendo would never in a thousand years do, nobody would even need mod chips to pirate, It would spell the end of Nintendo quicker than you could imagine (Dreamcast anyone?)

    Third, Nintendo doesn't make any money if people can just bypass their distribution systems, (downloading and burning) what would they stand to gain from getting a 0% cut on a game? Whereas if they start a games channel they can become the Itunes of game sales.
  • martinj88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11With the Wiis default 512MB I wonder what size limit they will put on them and this quote has me a bit confused.

    "We cannot confirm at this time in what format the new content will be delivered"


  • mutantmagnet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I don't see why anyone would think this was rumor. They said a long time ago that the Virtual Console would be used as a medium for indie developers to create games and distribute it to Wii owners. It's getting stupid how they've released very little followup information about it.
  • jet3004, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Wii Sports: Airplane, anyone?
  • Diggtatorship, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"according to wikipedia Super Mario Bros for the SNES was on a 4-megabit cartridge"

    You do realize that's in megabits not MegaBytes right?

    Here are some estimations on the capacity of the built in memory of the Wii:
    Average compressed NES rom: 134KB (4000 NES games)
    Average compressed SNES rom: 872KB (600 SNES games)
    Average compressed N64 rom: 13MB (40 N64 games)

    or check this page for a more extensive breakdown: http://web.mac.com/stewart.lawrence/iWeb/wii/VC%20Stuff.html


    @KarmaSucks
    Yeah, the SD card is currently only usefull for backing up data, since you can't play directly off of the SD card. :( Who knows... maybe this will change with a future firmware update...
  • CraigCarlyle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7All I can say, is that it's about damn time!

    Not everybody wants to spend $5-10 on games they already have/could download on their PC for free.
  • Imsirion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Heres hoping for a 16-bit era revival!
  • Flummoxer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Sneak King kinda sucks...

    It's fun for maybe 5 minutes. Maybe.
  • Diggtatorship, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4As an additional point of reference the official number of titles released for those systems are:

    NES: 671
    SNES: 715
    N64: 292

    If you do the math on that you could have 10% of the entire library of these 3 consoles and still have room to spare for 10% of the genesis and TG16 libraries of games.
  • Diggtatorship, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6bury you for suggesting it and lets never speak of this again.
  • KarmaSucks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Diggtator

    Have you found any use for the 2 gig SD card? I have one too, but it doesn't seem useful as it doesn't increase the Wii system memory. Also any channels I save to it can't be restored to the Wii if I format the system memory.
  • protogenxl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Maybe they will finish finally StarFox 2 !
  • Diggtatorship, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2New Gunstar Heroes por favor :)
  • looselips, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I think Nintendo better hurry up and get some online wiimote/nun-chuck games before flash sites beat them to it.
    I would rather play some cheap entertaining flash that uses the wiimote, than some old game that uses the + inputs.
    Start using Zelda TP style controls for all the VC games and make them online multi-player, and I might start downloading them.

    Anyone else into GlovePIE and the free guitar game, FretsOnFire ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/fretsonfire/ ) for the PC?
    It may be hard with the buttons but anyone see some possibilities of a physical wii-tar in the near future?
    Find yourself the right blue-tooth adapter and put your wiimote into games you only imagined it for.
    Newbie instructions here: http://wiihacks.blogspot.com/2006/12/newbies-guide-to-wii-remote-on-windows.html
  • EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2TheDiggMan "The only way I think they can pull it off is if Nintendo makes an external hard drive that connects to the Wii via usb."

    You have to have a broadband connection to download from the virtual console anyway. There is no reason at least part of the content couldn't be streamed. Also it's entirely possible to make a great game (particularly using something like flash) that's under 50MB. Given the fact you can delete VC titles and re-download them at any time I think 512MB would be plenty for light users.
  • venir, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6@r0b0

    The reason the Wii does not playback DVD video is because Nintendo decided not to license DVD decoding software so as to keep the cost down on the console. Personally I think it was a good decision because most people probably already have at least one DVD player they use to watch movies on.
  • intent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Knowing the new market for Secure Digital cards Nintendo has created, it probably won't be long before you can pick up an 8Gig card for $80, still probably cheaper than buying an external hard drive, if they were to create one. Would be even better if they came out with an official Nintendo 16Gig SD card instead of a hard drive."

    I think the Wii can only use up to 2GB on a SD card...for now.
  • chadu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can see a lot of appeal for the dev kits at the University level. I teach in a multimedia program for a university and if the dev kits were low priced and the mechanism for putting games on the Wii was available... we'd be all over it.
  • championchap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Castle Crashers!!
  • Partyworm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Did anyone seriously doubt something like this would happen?

    Just like Wii online play, i always got the impression that it was something not yet available, but always in the very imminent in the pipeline.
  • grumbel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Who will be creating those games? Long ago on E3 they talked about downloadable content and it sounded like they intended to open up the door for indy developers, but so far nothing has shown up in that direction. Wii devkits are still quite expensive (cheaper then a real PS3 or XBox360 devkit, but a lot more expensive than XNA or Gamecube Hombrew solutions) and pretty much unobtainable unless you are not so indy anymore.
  • darkmule, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Nintendo Press Information (from E3).

    Virtual Console: The Wii console will have downloadable access to 20 years of fan-favorite titles originally released for Nintendo® 64, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System® (SNES) and even the Nintendo Entertainment System® (NES). The Virtual Console™ also will feature a “best of” selection from Sega Genesis titles and games from the TURBO GRAFX16 console (a system jointly developed by NEC and Hudson). It also will be home to new games conceived by indie developers whose creativity is larger than their budgets.
  • t3hNinj4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sneak King is more of a conversation piece than a game. As awesome as the concept looks, and as hilarious as it is for the first 3 minutes or so, it's a terrible game. An incredibly simplistic and repetitive stealth game, where you do the same not-very-challenging thing over and over; it's to Metal Gear and Splinter Cell as Dynasty Warriors is to Ninja Gaiden and God of War. Kind of mildly amusing, but not something to obsess over.
  • iofthestorm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Especially since they already said a long time ago that there would be original content on the VC. Although, they also said they would have USB hard drive support, so blah. I'm going to be getting one in a month or so, hopefully by then there will be some more info on this situation.
  • buckeye45, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1hasn't this been the plan? release NES, SNES, and N64 games for download?
  • masskurec, on 03/04/2009, -0/+0this had to be done along time ago

    http://xptweak.net
  • crossers, on 07/18/2008, -0/+0sorry I understand that new Wii is Cool, but what new in this Wii?
    http://www.shpe-sac.org
    http://www.ocflex.com/
    http://www.trgovinca.org
    http://www.chasr.org/
  • depodollar, on 02/16/2008, -0/+0The wii games ISOs can be downloaded online now. Visit a review site to help you: http://www.great-monitor.com/reviews/wii.htm
    I already downloaded many games now!
  • grumbel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1VC titels are however a lot larger then their plain ROM dumps, thanks to the manual and whatever else they add to them, so the number of VC titels you can store is quite a bit smaller.
  • b3mus3d, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Fine you guys, bury him like it'll make the problem go away.
    Bury your head in the sand. Be my guest. :P
  • Wisgary, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I can't wait to re-buy all of my VC games, only with super duper online multiplayer added in.
  • MWeather, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Any news on when online games are coming out for the Wii?
  • BabyWookie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Now, this is good news and a perfectly digg-worthy Wii story!
  • se1zure, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Reported as innacurate.

    TItle directly contradicts the description, saying "sparked a rumour".
  • ChaoticNick, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1All this cool Wii news is making me want one more and more!
  • r0b0, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1@joshmcconaha

    The discs that the wii uses for games are DVDs. For some reason (I haven't looked into it) it cannot play movies. Maybe a different format? I don't know.

    Arg! I want a delete comment feature. aywwts4 already beat me to it.
  • kevinmotel, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2according to wikipedia Super Mario Bros for the SNES was on a 4-megabit cartridge

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_World
  • crazysasha, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0I'm holding out for Burger King "Sneak King" on Wii
    http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/858/858064.html
  • GTPBearSuit, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Why is this news? PS3 and 360 already have Blast Factor and Geometry Wars. It was kind of a given that this was coming along.
  • caddyalan, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3It's a nice rumor...

    I think any current console's future would be improved if there were new, simple, general-audience games... or easy-to-make user-generated games... or translations of previously untranslated games. How likely are these? I dunno.
  • joshmcconaha, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3That comment makes me think that there's the possibility of downloading games to a PC and burning them onto a CD or DVD (with the new DVD Wiis coming out and all). Think of the home-brew movement it would spark -- you could build your own games, charge people for them (or not), and share freely with friends.

    There's a very realistic path toward true open source development for consoles if they took that route, though with Nintendo being a publisher itself, the likelihood of something like that happening is debatable. (I also don't know anything about programming or hardware, so it may not be possible at all -- I'm just speculating (and hoping).)
  • ReeseKaine, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1How long before the American Wii downloads become flooded with NES/SNES/Genesis versions of Bratz, Spongebob, and Barbie Horse Adventures?

    Because you KNOW it's coming. Don't kid yourself. :-(
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -25/+1I still think the XBOX360 is better.http://virtualmagic.blogspot.com/2006/08/xbox-360.html

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.