WiiWare Week Round Up

Mark Graham writes "All this week, UK games development site Develop has been running a series of articles under its 'WiiWare Week' banner, analyzing developer's affections for, and the potential success of Nintendo's upcoming WiiWare digital distribution platform. Most revealing is the claim that Nintendo has been secretly 'waging war' on the likes of Sony and Microsoft by capitalizing on frustrations over cuts to the Xbox Live Arcade royalty rate (down from 70% to 35% for any game making under $4m in revenue) and talking up the service's access to a wide audience to win over development support. It features commentary from both established developers (such as David Braben, creator of Elite, and Scott Orr, creator of Madden) — and indie teams (developers of new WiiWare games Pop and Gravitronix) making launch games for the service."

Comments

Different Kind of WiiWare

[The MAZZTer]

We might be seeing a different kind of WiiWare popping up soon... a new version of the "Twilight Hack" (a stack smash using a specially crafted Zelda save game) now supports running code right off an SD card instead of using a GameCube SD -> memory card adapter. I just played some ... umm... Tetris... and Linux hangs when it goes to boot... but it's only been a few weeks since the hack was first published. I personally can't wait to see what kind of homebrew people come up with,

Re:Different Kind of WiiWare

[MtHuurne]

Was Linux hanging or was it waiting for you to log in via the serial connection? (USB Gecko)

I've been playing with the proof of concept Wii Linux released by isobel of gc-linux.org and although it is far from complete, a lot is working already (mainly the GameCube compatible stuff).

Re:Different Kind of WiiWare

[The MAZZTer]

Hmm... possibly. I was focusing on the last messages in the console which didn't seem particularly helpful. There might have been something about USB Gecko but it didn't strike me as something it was NEEDING... maybe I thought it was a driver or something.

I'll have to boot it again and take a closer look. Thanks.

In the meantime I guess it's back to Wii Tetris! :)

Re:Different Kind of WiiWare

[DKlineburg]

I think he has some of the more interesting hacks for the wii: Johnny Chung Lee. I figure he isn't the only one, but he does make some interesting things happen.

Wii Cracked!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2008/03/14/twilight-princess-hack-bootloader-updated-supports-internal-sd-slot-now/

The locks on the Nintendo Wii have been comprehensively broken. Now, just by loading some code onto an SD card and sticking it into your Wii, you can unlock your console so that it will play homebrew games written by anyone, not just big companies that have paid big license fees to Nintendo!

Xbox Live changes affect Sony?

[feepness]

Most revealing is the claim that Nintendo has been secretly 'waging war' on the likes of Sony and Microsoft by capitalizing on frustrations over cuts to the Xbox Live Arcade royalty rate (down from 70% to 35% for any game making under $4m in revenue) How do they get to capitalize on the likes of Sony from Microsoft cutting royalties to Xbox Live?

Also, with the 360's declining sales this is not a smart move from Microsoft.

MultiWii.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. I wonder how many Wii games will be multiplayer? Tennis or Golf with a distant partner would be perfect. Throw in DVD player and the Wii will meet most senior's needs.

New Releases for Wii!

[RedK]

This is all good and nice and all, but when will I be able to walk into a Best Buy/Wal Mart or any other store and actually buy a Wii Console ? The "shortage" is getting ridiculous.