I was just thinking about something after watching the live stream for the PS4 event last night and then seeing that Watch Dogs was confirmed for the Wii U. I wonder how hard it would be for Nintendo to add a Pre-Order option in the eShop for upcoming games like Watch Dogs or Pikmin 3? I think there's a lot of people want to show support for Ubisoft to try prevent any future delays of games or lack of support. Whether it does help or not, it would be interesting to see if everyone started pre-ordering it if the option was there.

I agree with this. I know PlayStation Network games can be preordered (and occasionally there is a bonus in there to do so), and I would love to see the same service extended to customers on the Wii U.

As behind the times Nintendo is on this I'm guessing we will see this in a year or two if ever. At least on my 3ds I almost download everything now but they need to raise the limit on the 32 gigs of memory. Not everyone knows about the other memory card format that let's you take that number much higher!

So kind of like buying the dlc packs on Fire Emblem Awakening and when the software comes out it downloads it when you enter the dlc shop but being eshop software it could possible start automatically? Actually that sounds like a neat idea.

I don't see the practice becoming a practical alternative to online/b&m pre-orders until there's a system in place seamless refunds (or exchanges) for products that 1) have been delayed for a prolong period, 2) end up in development hell indefinitely or 3) just take a strange turn from interesting to turd. I'm talking about prior to the game's release of course, since companies shouldn't be responsible for buyer's remorse.

I'm still waiting for a refund on Metro: Last Night, pre-ordered through the Day 1 Digital program. I average about three emails and one phone call a day trying to get my $60 back from Sony.

I can see the season pass model becoming the staple for extra content though.

OK so lets go along the route of something like this:

You can place a pre-order for any upcoming games, if you haven't cancelled the pre-order by the day of release then your purchase is automatically finalised and the game would automatically download to your Wii U all in the background. When it's done you get a nice notification on the home menu thing saying your games ready to instal/play.

To place a pre-order you would need to go through the usual process of adding funds to your account and the money would be taken from that balance and held till release. While your pre-order is still active you would have an option to cancel at any time by a simple press of a button.

You could also have an auto update for that game, like watching it for any news or information right up to release and beyond potentially. Maybe as Bankai mentioned you could have something like pre-order bonuses, extra content or maybe even just Wii U eShop points as a thank you, but you would only get those after the game sale was processed.

Actually sounds quite cool. Imagine you set it all up, game releases and you get a message on the Wii U menu saying your games ready to play, you have also received bonus content or eShop points and they are ready to use.

This actually sounds like an ok idea, as long as it'll start auto-downloading or something like that. I know some games take like 1 minute to DL, others take much longer(also, partly depending on WiFi) but it'd be handy not to have to wait forever for something to download. Well, unless you intend on staying up all night and then playing it.

@3Dash

Yeah it would auto-download once the game launched. Your payment would automatically process and as soon as it was confirmed on their end the download would start. They could maybe tie it up so if it was a large download, it would be launched 1st thing that day of launch so by the time you woke up it would be ready to go.

The setup would also have to automatically do a check to make sure your Wii U or external HD had sufficient space to download it to, if not it could still process through the payment so you could just start the download as soon as you cleared space for it.

I might see if I can put the idea on Miiverse, maybe get enough people yeah'ing it and they might take a look at the idea.

Yeah. Only thing, on Wii U,(I don't think it does this on PS?)you have to manually Install it.

I don't see why not providing there was a cancellation option. I should think it would be easy to implement as you already have the option to store your credit card details for use via a password, much like the Apple Apps store and Apple allows you to pre-order tv and films which I've done without a hitch.

I would certainly pre-order games if I knew when they'd be appearing and it would be a decent demand barometer for online purchases - even if they are a minority of total sales (for disc software releases).

That'd be awesome, I'd love to preorder off the eshop and it should have automatically start downloading at midnight so it's ready to play by morning or noon depending on file size

I'd love for Nintendo to do something like this. Especially if there's the occasional goodie for preordering. I'd use it.

OK seeing how it seems to be universally a good addition, I'll go create a post on Miiverse under my Network ID which is just the same as my username here, CDreams. Lets see if we can drum up some support and get some feedback or even a Nintendo rep to take a look at it. I'll post it in the Zelda community shortly since there's no general section yet, can't wait for that to arrive.

That would be so cool. I'm new to downloadable digital content so I wouldn't know I hard it would be for nintendo to do a preorder feature