Poo with diamonds in it is as worth as much as the diamonds are worth regardless of how stinky they are.

Wiiware should've had demos for every game like XBLA. That's one of the main reasons I avoided Wiiware. Most of the games I got were the ones I was hyped for like Cave Story or BIT.TRIP Runner and it was those games that generally ended up being my favorite. Most of my impulse purchases were crap (looking at you Defend Your Castle).

Overall I'd say it was a flop.

but it's not much fun digging them out.

I believe that it was the service that tried. it simply wasn't popular enough especially due to the "very" casual Wii audience. There were some simply awesome games released on the service but very few if any gained cross gamer popularity. It was decent for dedicated owners, but has little to offer for those already settled on another system.

i was never a fan of wiiware. but nintendo seems to promote the heck out of it by releasing games every week, whereas the virtual console, which IMO is better was neglected. wiiware is mainly casual, shovelware titles that would be suited on iphones.

Use beetles

The lack of Super Meat Boy, Scott Pilgrim V.S. The World, Limbo, and Sonic CD all scream yes. Wii Ware will never stack up to XBLA or PSN. It was a huge flop in my opinion.

your proof is...4 games. Maybe if you even said a dozen that would be something but I can at least name 4 great Wiiware games. And I can name a game better than any of those on XBLA. Banjo Kazooie.

MOTO HEROZ!!!
FAST: RACING LEAGUE!!!
AYA AND THE CUBES OF LIGHT!!!
MAX AND THE MAGIC MARKER!!!
FLUIDITY!!!
WORLD OF GOO!!!

As a Wii-only gamer I felt like WiiWare was a disappointment, but after getting a PS3, I was kind of surprised at how underwhelming the PSN marketplace was. So in retrospect, WiiWare produced a lot of mediocrity, but that same mediocrity pervades pretty much all the other online marketplaces: PSN, Xbox Live Arcade, App Store, etc. WiiWare produced a few exclusive classics and thats all that the other platforms have done. Its not like there is an overwhelming wealth of awesome games on either Microsoft of Sony's platform. However, there is no doubt that Nintendo hampered themselves in classic Nintendo fashion with a crappy online shopping hub, file size limits, etc.
I gotta say, tho, Xbox takes the cake for Super Meat Boy alone.

I don't know @lockelocke, I think Moto Heroz is some really stiff competition. It really could've been a retail release. And to tell you the truth, I think Moto Heroz blows Super Meat Boy out of the water and I'd actually rather play Fluidity.

Sorry, I honestly don't play much XBLA or WiiWare, but it obvious to me which is superior. Maybe if Nintendo had tried to fix things, I would be more supportive, but has the Wii Shop ever been improved upon in the last couple years? The MB size limit is still ridiculously small. Third Party developers get hindered on what they can and can't do. Sega had to drop the music quality of Sonic 4 in order to get it on WiiWare. Remember when Retro City Rampage got delayed in favor of dual release on WiiWare and XBLA? I can't say I blame them. Wii Ware is a monument to Nintendo's arrogance with online media. It's like discs all over again. Sure there are a few diamonds in the rough, but you're still stuck with a big pile of rocks.

Are you kidding me? There's way more than a dozen great XBLA/PSN games that aren't on WiiWare (apart from the aforementioned: Shadow Complex, Braid, Splosion Man, PixelJunk, Castle Crashers, EchoChrome, Everyday Shooter, Stacking, Fl0w, Trials, Flower, Journey and HD remakes like BG&E, Rez, Geometry Wars, Perfect Dark come to mind and I don't even have the consoles). Meanwhile most fun WiiWare games have been ported to steam or iOS.

While I got a handful of fun games on WiiWare, you can play virtually all on other platforms, making WiiWare unnecessary.

All the iOs and PC/Steam ports aren't that great control-wise, don't you think? Seems like you have never tried NyxQuest or BIT.TRIP on Wii... games that need Wii controls! You gotta be kidding me if you prefer the PC/Steam versions.

Here's my little list of the great WiiWare exclusives you can't play anywhere else.

1. MotoHeroz
2-7. The complete BIT.TRIP series.
8-12. The five Art Styles.
13. Dr. Mario Online
14. Excitebike Online
15&16. FFCC King & Darklord
17. Bonsai Barber
18. Hydroventure
19-22. The four Shin'en exclusives.
23&24. LostWinds 1 & 2
25. Rage of the Gladiator
26. Zombie Panic
27-29 The KONAMI ReBirth series (Gradius, Castlevania, Contra)
30-34 The five Strong Bad episodes.
etc.

WiiWare also has the best versions of some ports: World of Goo, Cave Story, Online Tetris, Crystal Defenders R1&R2, Actionloop.

And games that were later ported to other systems weren't any better (Best versions of NyxQuest, Max & the Magic Marker, the BIT.TRIPs, Flowerworks and FF4: The After Years are on Wii).

And finally, we got some not-so-good-ports - of fantastic games anyway - like the five Monkey Islands and the three Phoenix Wrights, Sonic 4.

Still sometimes I wish we would get MDK2 and Snowpack Park, Liight, Frobot and The Magic Obelisk in EU. I also understand the disappointment in Super Meat Boy and Retro City Rampage, but exclusives like MotoHeroz and Hydroventure that I currently play on WiiWare make sure I forget all these flaws for a moment.

WiiWare could have been much better, that's right, but it's still the best of all the download shops imo.

Actually I do have those games on WiiWare, and I love them, and I wish WiiWare attracted enough users so they wouldn't have to port their games to other platforms.

Lost Winds is coming to iOS btw... such a shame, my favourite WiiWare games. Oh well, at least more people will get to enjoy them now.

see, Tealover and SKTTR posted a lot more than 4 games. That's how you actually try to prove a point.

I'd say XBLA wins. Yeah, Wiiware had some awesome stuff but really, it's more developer friendly and has much more fun games. Now if you include VC, Wii wins by a landslide imo just for the amount of legendary games it has, but we're not so yeah.

As far as services go its xbla> wiiware>psn

Cant wait to see how the wii u eshop handles. Things.

Thank you so much for your insight. I guess the whole concept of prime examples doesn't work anymore.

On the other hand, I think WiiWare might have been a good wake up call for Nintendo. They're trying a lot harder with eShop now. Once eShop gets going with more third party support, I think we'll see some pretty good titles pop up more frequently than we did on WiiWare.

As far as service goes? It was a complete failure. It was a disservice to users, a disservice to consumers, and an even worse disservice to the people who made games on the platform, which is a shame as there are some really amazing games on the service.

3DS is much better, but that's not saying much.

I personally like PSN the most, but clearly XBL is the better one. No wait, actually Steam is. Steam, XBL, PSN, App Store...WiiWare doesn't even pass.

Course most of you know my opinion on Nintendo's digital efforts. lol
Who knows, maybe Nintendo learned their lessons with WiiWare and 3DSWare but I'm not holding my breath for anything amazing on Wii U. They just don't seem to get it.
The fact that they still haven't implemented demos on any of their systems or occasional sales just proves they don't get it.
Their pricing structure isn't anything to gloat about either.