The State of WiiWare, Xbox Alternatives

CVG is running a piece discussing the current state of WiiWare, and where they expect it to go in the future. They point to the success of Mega Man 9 on WiiWare and other platforms, but worry that the perception will arise that certain games are "too good" to be featured on WiiWare. GameSetWatch has a related interview with independent developer Ninjabee discussing their recent games and comparing WiiWare with Xbox Live Arcade. Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced that the new Xbox Experience coming in November will included their Community Games initiative, which will allow amateur game developers to create and share games using the XNA development tools.

Comments

The DRM issue needs to be sorted out.

[earthbound kid]

I've used the WiiWare and Virtual Console stores, but I think Nintendo really needs to work out the DRM issue. If I want to change to a different colored Wii in a couple years, will there be any way to bring my current games with me? What if my current machine just dies for some reason? What about when the Wii 2 comes out? Will there be any way of bringing my current collection of WiiWare with me to future consoles? Yeah, you can link your Wii with a My Nintendo account, but so far as I can tell, so far that has no effect whatsoever on your ability to retrieve your games in the future...

Re:The DRM issue needs to be sorted out.

[dunezone]

I bet they will allow it but be prepared for a hassle. I mean look at the friend code system they have for playing games with your friends.

The best bet to see how Nintendo will do this is to find the instructions they have right now for transferring your account from a dead Wii to a replacement unit. That will give you a general idea of how some future transfer of accounts will work.

Also this is the same company that wanted me to pay $5 for Super Mario Brothers (AGAIN). Nintendo should have made this a free download when the Wii launched. So expect anything from them.

Re:The DRM issue needs to be sorted out.

[Ringl]

You don't even need to set up the my nintendo account. Anything you purchase you can delete off your system as much as you want and just go back and download it right away.

And if your system dies? When you get a new one call Nintendo's customer support, give them your old serial number and then give them your new serial number and Nintendo transfers everything you've purchased to your new console. Then everything you've purchased is available to download.

Nintendo doesn't have any DRM issue that can't also be said of the 360 or PS3.

Re:The DRM issue needs to be sorted out.

[philspear]

Nintendo doesn't have any DRM issue that can't also be said of the 360 or PS3.

Of course there's the real issue. DRM is such an anathema around here that it doesn't even have to have real problems to be denounced. I get the impression that anything more than a note (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/24/) would automatically get a "brokenbydesign" tag and halfhearted calls to boycott it until they learn.

Re:The DRM issue needs to be sorted out.

[elrous0]

The REAL problem with DRM is something common to WiiWware, 360 arcade, the PSN store, and virtually everything else DRM touches, namely:

What happens when the parent company gets tired of supporting it? What happens when they no longer answer the phone when you call them to transfer your account to a new console (or, alternatively, they answer and tell you "Sorry, we're no longer supporting that console model/DRM scheme")? What happens when they shutdown their old DRM servers (like Walmart threatened to do recently).

I'll tell you what happens. You kiss your "owned" music/games/movies goodbye. THAT'S the problem with DRM. Unlike with physical media, you never really OWN your media. All you've bought is an extended rental, whose rental period could end at any time.

Re:Don't forget Sony

[DrEldarion]

You mean like Pain, Calling All Cars, Flow, Warhawk, Echochrome, Everyday Shooter, the Pixeljunk games, Super Stardust HD, etc. etc. etc.?

You still get your WiiWare/VC games after repair

[Anonymous Coward]

I had my Wii repaired because of a problem with it overheating and displaying black boxes from time to time. (The repair was free, btw, and I recommend it if you are having the same problem.)

Essentially they copied all my data over to another Wii and sent that Wii back. So from a DRM-standpoint, it's like getting a new Wii. From what I recall, my WiiWare and VC games stayed on there just fine.

The only downside I noticed was I can no longer edit the Miis that were on there before because they don't allow you to edit them on someone else's system.

DAMN YOU NINTENDO, GET RID OF YOUR OVERLY RESTRICTIVE Mii DRM!!!!!

Re:The Real Problem...

[Karma Sink]

SD cards aren't very expensive. I only have a 2GB card in my Wii and there's still plenty of room for me to download games. Mind you, I tend toward NES and SNES games more often for download, but it's still a lot of space.

XNA Community Games

[neokushan]

I'm more curious as to how the /. community feels about Microsoft's community games. I, personally, think it's a brilliant idea and hopefully it'll bring back the days of the "bedroom-made game". I'm a little worried that many quality (and more to the point, original) games will get overshadowed by the fad-of-the-month sort of thing, but the system seems to be working well enough for music and youtube, so I think we'll be all right. Plus it's still a lot better than what you currently have - publish and distribute it yourself, on your own site, at your own costs, etc.

I look forward to seeing some really awesome stuff over the coming months (And hopefully years).

Re:decent but needs work

[philspear]

not like there are any really really good games for wii.

Begs the question "what do you mean by really really good games when there's..." But I'm not going to ask it. So there, foiled your plot! :-P

Re:Amateurs are the key

[CronoCloud]

You're forgetting the PS3 has the ability to run Linux, so there's your hobbyist dev station right there, at least for 2D games.

Re:MS Desperately Needs Content To Pad Out Lineup

[neokushan]

I think you're a little bit misinformed there, or slightly biased (but then aren't we all?).

Yes, Microsoft doesn't have half as many first-party developers as Sony or Nintendo, but I wouldn't say they've had "nothing" to show for the past year, there's still way more 360 exclusives than PS3 exclusives (But Nintendo has the runaway total of those because so many developers are happy to port crap games to the Wii to make a quick buck).
What "mostly irrelevant PC ports" are you referring to, exactly? The myth of the Xbox 360 being little more than a PC is exactly that - a myth (the original Xbox definitely was, though), but it's no surprise that both platforms tend to go hand-in-hand when Microsoft supplies pretty much all the development tools for both. But I digress, I'm not sure what ports you're referring to, unless you count a few Arcade games.

As for being content starved and desperate, I really can't say anything to that because it's just so utterly, utterly wrong. The PS3 is way more content starved than the 360, the 360 has hundreds, possibly thousands of titles on it right now, way more than the PS3 and I've yet to see any kind of NPD data or similar that indicates that the 360 isn't the most profitable system of them all (For developers, that is). The RROD $1billion certainly ate into Microsoft's profits quite a bit, but the amount of money they're raking in through console, software and peripheral sales is staggering. What's more, aside from the Wii (Can you count it as a "current-gen" console? That's a debate for another time), it's selling stupendously well right now and absolutely out-pacing Sony in all markets - Even Japan.
Yeah sure, Microsoft has a lot of ground to make up still, but they're currently in an extremely strong position (Stronger than Sony and that's saying something) and nothing seems desperate at all. One thing Microsoft is good at, though, is making money and I think with this XNA lark, they've noticed quite a large amount of potential market for indie games and this is an excellent way for them to get a piece of that pie.

Re:Amateurs are the key

[tepples]

But the mass market does not want 2d games, they want 3d

Then why did Capcom make Mega Man 9 and not just release its N64 port of Mega Man Legends on Virtual Console?

"Only" 2GB

[Rurik]

That's beating around the issue that the maximum SD card that the Wii accepts is 2GB. It doesn't support SDHC, which greatly limits its storage which, IMO, is a huge fault of the Wii. For a full life cycle, 2GB will not be enough for many users. There are already people who are hitting that ceiling, especially those that do not have regular Internet access, and thus can't afford the luxury of just deleting games to redownload later.

I've hit 2GB, however I have a lot of homebrew apps.

Re:You still get your WiiWare/VC games after repai

[Daetrin]

Did you have a Super Smash Bros save on the original Wii? I've heard that several games, SSBB among them, have copy protected save files that only work on the original console (similar to the Mii files you're having trouble with.) Though i'm not sure what it is they're supposed to protected _from_ =P

Re:You still get your WiiWare/VC games after repai

[xenocide2]

A savegame is one of the paths to breaking the data / code barrier and running untrusted code. This has two implications: piracy and viruses. We've already seen how easy it was to run untrusted code via a simple savegame. Transfer the save from the Wii to the SD card, load up the save in a hex editor and start looking for meaning. Name strings, for example. If you rewrite the save to use an overly long name, maybe it notices and nothing happens. But maybe they forgot to check the horse's name. All you need is one weak path, and now you can run homebrew emulators that compete with Virtual Console games (you can also run Linux, but there's little point without wifi). You might also be able to

There's another problem however, that affects more than Nintendo's bottom line. Malicious virii. If there was a problem with game names, it could potentially wreck a chain of players. I imagine a game like Brawl does peer to peer multiplayer to reduce latency and bottlenecks, so you can't filter out bad packets. And you can't shut down online play without fiasco. So encrypting the save at least obscures where data that might be transferred over the net is stored.