I think for Action RPGs with Co Op System like Diablo with focus of item looting for example those generators are ok, but not for a story telling RPG . I think that really depends on the gameplay.
Size Topic:
You must look which files are realy big. Strong Bad for example has Voices with lot of sound files. That is only possible because their graphics use low toon textures (like Mario 64)
It would be very hard when you try to make a game with a realistic graphic style. That is not recommended. Even normal Wii games have problems then.
My Life as a King has a detailed town with nice looking characters. The managing part is smart, so that they dont need to build real dungeons and monsters. The size would be too big on the one hand and its much more costly.

Yes you right, Omega, a Top Down View is a good way. Because you can use low textures and lower detailed models.

@ KDR The announcement of the announcement that we create a Wiiware title would be a bit too complex for an NDA Violation.
A violoation for example would be, when I put the WiiWare Logo on Screenshots and dont speak with Nintendo before. They want to check the quality. But like World of Goo we work also on a PC version, so its free for us ,how we use our press content.

I'm tired of puzzle games...and racing games...and party games...Give me some Mario

Name 1 SNES game that was 32 MB?? There wasn't very many N64 titles at that size...

Chrono Trigger. Look at the Media section of its wiki page...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger

But that's not the only game. Donkey Kong Country was as well. There were others, I just can't remember them all.

Chrono Trigger fits on a 32-Megabit Cartridge (that is 4 MB). The size of WiiWare games is limited to 320-Megabit (40 MB), right?

Hmmm well, just gives more evidence to how much better these games should be!!

I hope the success of Mega Man 9 makes more companies realize that updates to old franchises do not need fancy graphics/sound etc, just keep the same formula that made the original so popular and your onto a winner.

Just think how popular a new Mario game would be in the same style as Mario 1,3 or World. I know how much Nintendo loves the £$€¥, so if your listening Ninty think about the money, if not your loyal retro loving fans.

The problem is...I think there are more casual fans that will buy almost anything....that will randomly spend $10 on the next puzzle game because God knows they need more puzzle games on WiiWare (no offense to World of Goo).....there are more of those people than there are of us.

This is true. However, that doesn't mean that the techniques caused by paletted consoles can't be used on a modern console. Keep in mind that we only care about the download size. Decoding paletted images into 24bit images can be done at runtime. And since you're not sharing the palette across all your sprites (like consoles were forced to do back in the day), 256 colors or less can show up as quite crisp on the screen. Especially if you use the TEV pipeline to good effect for shading and other lighting effects.

2. 8 bit consoles ran at 320x240 or less. The Wii runs at 640x480. Unless you want stuff to deliberately look blocky (which people wouldn't accept) you'll have to go with the higher resolution.

Basically, four times the data for the same size stuff. Which is potentially an issue with sprite-heavy games. Textured games can go either way. If your textures are extremely complex, then you may run into space issues. But if your textures are simpler (as they often are in downloadable games), it's quite feasible to compress them down below 40MB. It's just not as convenient to optimize for the space.

3. 8 bit games were AAA titles back in the day. They had full teams with full budgets and full dev times and sold at full price. WiiWare games are developed with reduced teams (which admittedly may still have the same size as the old teams) on reduced budgets and reduced schedules (no 2 year dev times, half a year or less is usual) and get sold only in an online store at low prices. The most expensive WiiWare game is 20€ (SIGE) and that was simply rerouted from a retail release.

This is the real clincher, I think. The technology part of SNES software was more costly to develop than when we achieve the same effect today, but that's only a small part of the costs. If you look at a game like Super Mario World, you have to ask yourself: "How many man-hours went into designing all those graphics, levels, and sound effects?"

The answer has not changed significantly over the past two decades. Anyone foolish enough to try and replicate SMW would still find themselves with a rather massive task ahead of them. Not having to manufacture expensive cartridges will help offset those costs, but not enough to make up the difference in price. More than likely, any gains would be more than offset by the smaller audience of WiiWare.

WiiWare is more suitable for games that are too small to be sold at retail but may still require the full power of a console.

The good news is that there are tons of great indie developers that fit in this category. The bad news is that Nintendo has either failed to attract or managed to exclude the majority of them.

Mega Man 9 is the only one that I am actually interested in, but I guess it's a good way for small developers to get 'out there'

i second the motion

I will buy retro remakes on WiiWare in a heartbeat!

I wish there was a Street Fighter game with an online mode. All they have to do is tack on an online feature to Super Street Fighter 2. They don't need to make it pretty or anything like HD Remix, they just need to take the SNES version, and tack on an online feature so that I can actually have people to play with.

In my opinion from playing xbox SF2 online a small part of the fun is taken away when your opponent isn't in the same room, esp the banter ie.

"you button basher"
" you can only win with ken or ryu"
"stop cheating, one move wonder"
etc

(add swear words where ever needed/possible)

I don't think that is really a big factor here. Megaman 9 is still in the top 20 worldwide; the WiiWare/VC service as a whole has a serious core audience that's interested in this type of game if it's quality, it just needs the right buzz.

I do think you'll still see puzzle games because they're a bit easier to do for a service like this, but I think that developers are starting to realise that the WiiWare audience isn't as "casual" as many people tend to think. The people interested in paying to download titles are more into games period and aren't the same people who will happily sit all day playing Bejeweled at work. You can already see some nice variety in announced games for future release; it's just taken awhile for developers to figure this out.