On May 12, 2009(1 week) the Wiiware service will be numero uno years old and I want to know what you think of it so far?

Me, I think it`s very mediocre. The reason I say that is, just look at the service`s library.
50% Shovelware
30% Fun Games
20% Everything in between

I think the service could do better but I do really care anymore lol

I think the WiiWare service has been great,you got great titles like
#1:Mega Man 9
#2: POP which I still play till this day
#3:World Of Goo
#4:Bomber Man Blast
#5:The Strong Bad Series
#6:Tetris Party
#7:Space Invader's Get Even
#8:Lost Winds
#9: Onslaught
#10:Bit.Trip.Beat
#11: Doctor Mario RX Online
and there's a lot more good titles on WiiWare.

Left over points make it all abit too impulsive for my likes, but for pick up and play gaming, WiiWare is brilliant.
World of Goo is mega, and I love having Tetris on my dashboard.

yes theres about 20 great WW titles on the service to date but now as for the other 70 or so...
lets just not say anything

About 3/5 of the games on WW suck. And the other 2/5 are decent. I just wish nintendo would lift the 40mb limit, So we could get some good games. (like castle crashers)

I have a huge amount of analysis I can show everyone in the coming weeks once the 1st year anniversary is hit, but I will say that from a strictly review standpoint, about 40 percent of the games released are deemed "recommended" while nearly a third are "avoids," and by that I mean ranging from very meh to diseased in quality. The good to bad ratio is not very good, but there are some truly worthwhile titles that have come out and not only from Nintendo.

My biggest annoyance is the sheer amount of puzzlers released for the service. Even now, a solid thirty percent of the games are puzzlers. What comes to an annoyance to me even moreso is that so many independent developers go to puzzlers as their first game rather than another genre. The puzzlers seem more worthy of DSiware, but I have a feeling that apps and even smaller games are what DSiWare is becoming. Overall, I like WiiWare's first year, but so far 09 has been a bit blase in its overal quality (save a few notable games, of course).

@ WhoKnew Caste Crashers is probably several hundred megs in size. Nintendo will not lift the limit my much because they need to ensure that anyone can download the games (that is, run it from the harddrive). Therefore, the most a game can really get is perhaps double the limit, and even then is pushing it. Personally, I think Nintendo misjudged the need for harddrive space when WiiWare arrived.

The 40 MB is not what's preventing great games!! It's the target audience's repulsion at retro graphics that are stopping it. If all the memory is spent making pretty graphics, there isn't enough room to fit in a deep game.

Was Super Mario Bros. 1 through 3 terrible because they were all under 40 MB??

I think I have more points than I'll ever possibly use, given the current run-rate (walk-rate, crawl-rate?) of quality games.

i wish there were more adventure-type games available... something with an actual story behind it that I can get into. Lostwinds 2, Icarian: Kindred Spirits, and FFIV: The After Years are the kind of games I'm looking forward to at the moment.

more adventure type games would be great yeah.
the year was ok. WiiWare can keep up with PSN and has some own highlights like World of Goo , My life as a King and Lost Winds. Also there are some nice fun games, like Fun Fun xD or Toki Tori.
it will be very interesting to see if there will be lots of more puzzle games or not. And will there be new special games like WoG ? Maybe Swords&Soldiers or Night Game, we'll see.

Lots of great games, although I do wish more developers would focus on trying to make full games. The closest to a retail game is probably Mega Man 9; although that would be kind of an old retail game. Obviously I'm not expecting a game that takes full advantage of the Wii's capabilities and lasts hours, but in the space Nintendo allots you can create classic. It's 40MB, right? Any classic SNES RPG will fit in to that space. Ocarina of Time will fit in to that space. Super Mario 64 fits.

Heck, you could create an RPG four or five times that of the average SNES romp, and still have space. Or you could just recreate your classic games. Games like this could also be easily made multiplatform.

Konami could make a Metal Gear game that plays like the old MSX2 ones, and another Castlevania. Heck, Konami could create a game made almost entirely out of simple polygon structures; just make an MGS title that focuses on VR missions, and the graphics will be just fine. SE could create new FFs and DW/DQs; or another Chrono Trigger sequel. Earthworm Jim and Comix Zone sequels could look beautiful. A new Contra game could work, as could Bangai-O. I'd also like to to see at least a couple visual novels on WiiWare.

The point I'm trying to make is, there's no reason it has to be "arcadey game with staying power" or "game with a plot, which is insanely short" (see LostWinds). WiiWare has plenty of room to make a game that lasts for hours and is a classic.

Why should they do that, when they have the much bigger DS market with FULL PRICES around 40-50 Dollars. You forgot that a new good , classic full "SNES" RPG needs much more manpower then a My Life as a King for example. Therefore Square sells titles like Crystal Defenders for 800 points not a big and epic RPG for uhm...4000 points? . But now After years is coming , one step forward I think. Ah and Contra Rebirth.

Very satisfied with the service. The ratio of gold to crap is about the same as XBLA or PSN, but when you get gold on Wiiware, it often uses the controls in awesome ways that the other platforms couldn't

I think the problem with services like WiiWare is that you spend money to buy a set amount of points rather than just paying directly for a game. Especially considering that some games like Toki Tori are 900 points meaning that I've had 100 points left over for a long time, so far completely useless. I'd much prefer if it was more like Steam. With weekend deals and such. The prices are a bit too high for my tastes, but that's more of a problem with the VC.

Otherwise, the games have been OK.

I haven't downloaded a single WiiWare game so far, I prefer spending my Nintendo Points on Virtual Console titles. But I'd like to see some more first party franchises on this service. A Super Mario Bros. in the style of the old NES classics or a Zelda game in the style of A Link to the Past definitely would be an instant download for me. But sadly Nintendo stated they won't do this, because they fear it could drive away third party developers, since those games definitely would dominate the whole service.

To me WiiWare is like a big junk yard. But, you can find a few good games in the bunch. I pretty much focus on buying VC games, since they are usually cheaper and of higher quality. I'm an old school gamer so I just like the retro graphics better anyway.

WiiWare rocks! I power up my Wii and not only do i have an extensive list of retro classics, but now I also have over ten new games, that I don't have to get up and change a disc for. Awesome-vegetation!

But yeah, I really wish Ninty would get programming some retro-updates cos they would absolutely freakin' pwn!

What developers are doing right with WiiWare;
-Retro style games. (Mega Man 9, Gradius Rebirth)
-Episode based games (Strongbad)
-Puzzle games (Art Style series, World of Goo, Dr. Mario)
-Games with simple designs but deep gameplay (Cave Story)

What developers should STOP doing with WiiWare;
-Shovelware, obviously (at least 3/4 the services entire library)
-Overly ambitious titles that can't be developed to their full potential within the limitations of the service
-Half baked remakes (Adventure Island, Rainbow Islands)

My final verdict;
If developers would just accept that WiiWare has more potential then just what's on paper, maybe we'd see more worthwhile games more often. As of right now, though, it seems to be host to mostly point burning titles that offer little to no depth. If I were to give a letter grade to the first year of the service it would be a low C to high D.

Without the very best games like Mario and Zelda to keep the level high, I think developers are getting lazy. They're just like..."Oh look at that game....they're getting away with putting no effort....I should get away with no effort too!!"

Sturgeon's Law says about 80-90% should be crap so that's a very good rate. Any service is going to have more crap than greats, that's just how the world is. WhoKnew mentioned Castle Crashers but that's ONE GAME. XBLA has about 200 games in total. Yes, there are more good games than just CC but not many.

That's because conventional wisdom is that puzzle games are easy, high profit games you can make to build up your base capital for developing the games you really want to make. Indies behave like that even outside of download services.

It has the physical means but that's it, there's more to making a game than just fitting it on the hardware. First you have to develop it and making a game of significant length takes a lot of effort, especially if you want to make sure it's actually worth its length (you can stretch a game to any length using copy and paste but that's obviously going to be no fun, you have to design it so the time it demands from the user is filled with fun and that's no easy task). Then you've got the target market. WiiWare games sell fairly lowly and at a pretty low price. You won't make huge amounts of money from a game on there so you have to limit your spending.