Happy Birthday WiiWare!

It's hard to believe that it's been a whole year since the WiiWare service first kicked off. We thought it might be nice to take a look back at some of the more memorable events that have taken place in the WiiWare service's first year.

Now keep in mind we couldn't include every great event that took place, but we tried to go through and choose news items that we felt really helped contribute to the WiiWare service's amazing first year in the books. We also couldn't help but toss in some rather special WiiWare World moments as well, since the site kicked off on basically the same day as Nintendo's WiiWare service.

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May 12, 2008 - WIIWARE WORLD LAUNCHES
Hard to believe it's been a full year since we launched the WiiWare World site. It's equally hard to believe that WiiWare World is no more, rather it's now a part of the Nintendo Life site. I can still remember when Daz first asked me if I would be interested in reviewing for the upcoming WiiWare site while I was still working on my Virtual Turbo site. We had a great first year and met and worked with a lot of great developers and publishers to help make the site what it is today. Here's hoping we have another great year in 2009!

May 12, 2008 - NINTENDO'S WIIWARE SERVICE LAUNCHES
Nintendo launched their WiiWare service in North America with the release of six WiiWare titles. Defend Your Castle, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, LostWinds, Pop, TV Show King, and V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack were all released on the first day of the WiiWare service's inception. We even managed to review them all, if you can believe that. Now here we are at 81 current releases between the various North American and European regions and we've just begun the journey. Let's hope 2009 is as much fun as 2008 was.

June 5, 2008 - WIIWARE WORLD'S FIRST TOP 10
Before it became the Top 20, we had the Top 10. Of course that was more out of necessity than anything since there wasn't quite 20 WiiWare titles available on the service yet. This would kick off a feature that's still running each week to this very day. We know the charts don't change as much now that we have so many titles on the service, but it's become such a staple of the site that we find it difficult to let go of it. So like it or not, the Top 20 is here to stay.

July 1, 2008 - MEGA MAN 9 ANNOUNCED FOR WIIWARE
Although rumors had already been circulating at the time, we finally found out that Capcom was bringing an all-new Mega Man adventure to the WiiWare service and would be doing so in full 8-bit musical and visual glory. The game was a hugely anticipated title and is still one of the most well-known titles on the service. Luckily, it wouldn't be the last big hit for the service.

July 28, 2008 - PONG TOSS HITS THE WIIWARE SERVICE
We know it's bad, but we can't help but raz our good old WiiWare classic Pong Toss. For those who don't remember, the game was originally going to be called "Beer Pong" but the good folks at Nintendo shot that idea down in a hurry. The game didn't exactly light up the review charts and it's become one of the most picked upon WiiWare releases to date. If you've played it you'll likely understand why that is.

October 13, 2008 - WORLD OF GOO COMES TO WIIWARE
The much anticipated World of Goo title finally hits the WiiWare service and fans rejoice. The game was pretty much everything we had hoped for and more. We even went so far as to score the game our only perfect "10" to date. So if that doesn't tell you how good it is, take a look at the WiiWare Top 20 where the game is still sitting at the top. Now we just have to hope the sequel comes soon before we all go Goo crazy.

December 18, 2008 - EUROPE GETS ALL GOOEY ON WIIWARE
After several months of thinking that World of Goo was going to skip the WiiWare service and go straight to retail for its European release, gamers were finally treated to some good news when it was announced that the game would be released on the WiiWare service in Europe after all. On December 18, 2008 that promise was kept and the game finally became available to European gamers who had been craving the game for over two months since the game was released in North America.

February 4, 2009 - TETRIS PARTY FINALLY KNOCKS WORLD OF GOO OFF THE #1 SPOT
World of Goo sat at the top of the Top 20 for many weeks until Tetris Party was finally able to knock it off its spot. It even managed to hang in there a couple of months before World of Goo once again regained its dominant force that it's still enjoying to this very day. How much longer will this behemoth of a WiiWare title remain entrenched at the top of the chart?

March 25, 2009 - NINTENDO ADDRESSES THE WII STORAGE SOLUTION PROBLEM
It might have taken them awhile, but the geeks and otaku won out on this issue. The limited internal storage of the Nintendo Wii had long been a touchy subject among Wii owners, but on March 25th Nintendo finally released a software update that would allow games to be loaded directly from the SD card slot. While you still had to have enough internal storage room for the game to be launched from the SD card, it finally provided the ease-of-use Wii owners had been asking for all along.

April 1, 2009 - WIIWARE WORLD FANS WAKE UP TO A SHOCK
Although it was originally thought to be nothing more than a ruthless April Fool's joke on our part, when everyone surfed onto the WiiWare World and VC-Reviews sites the morning of April 1, they were treated to a shocking announcement. Nintendo Life had acquired both sites and now our beloved WiiWare World and VC-Reviews were no more. It's taken some time to get past the pain and anger, but we think the new all-in-one site has turned out to be quite a hit. But we do sometimes miss the old WiiWare World. That's why I tossed in the WiiWare World graphics for those who wish to fondly remember it.

Of course there were many more amazing events that took place over the past year, but we wanted to just hit on a few of our favorites or ones that just really stood out to us.

We want to thank all the readers for making WiiWare World and now Nintendo Life the success they've been and we look forward to another great year. We hope you'll continue to come along with us for the ride.

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