Iwata: WiiWare Demos Are Coming

Demos for retail games right? I hope so...
...Did someone just edit my post here? >_>

No just wiiware.

It's about time. A demo could pull me over the line of buying a game or waiting till it's really cheap or not buying it at all. I love the demo's on the Nintendo Channel for the DS. I bought quite some games based on the demo and loved it.

Sounds good to me. I find most Wiiware games to be too iffy to invest in right on the spot. Demoes would definitely come in handy for me.

starts sobbing FINALLY NINTENDO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very nice news. Now pray that this comes out of Japan.

I just have to say its about time Nintendo started doing this. Now if only they would give us DLC for ds and Wii games...

I'm all for demos, always odd that the only demos on the wii are through the ds

Even though it probably won't happen, I'd love it if there were demos for VC games as well. This is great news either way, though.

(Achievement Unlocked: Nintendo is has a chance against MS in the DLC Race)

Yalls are welcome!

I bought Rhythm Heaven based on the download demo, loved that game!

That's cool but tell me when we get movies, TV shows and a better internet channel.

I bet NoJ will test it, launch it in Japan, then EU will pick it up a couple months later.
And NoA will say it's not needed and never give it to us.

• happy face *

Hopefully we get some VC demos at some point as well.

I have 13 WiiWare games and half of them I regret purchasing. I think it would be a good idea to have a demo for the games.

Finally, I can play games without paying for them! I don't if it's a fration of the game! does dorky dance

OMG! It's about time!

No complaints here. Yay!

Although some WiiWare developers (the 5h1t ones), just soiled themselves.

I really hope this comes out soon! Actually, this probably won't be good for my wallet. I already spend 20-50 dollars a month on downloads. Now some of those iffy titles may worm their way in.

I don't like the demo idea. I guess some people like it though.

@Ezekiel: Why would you not want to try a game before spending money on it?

Forget demos for retail games...the Wii doesn't have enough internal memory to hold one. WiiWare demos is an EXCELLENT idea, though. I hope they bring it state-side, with some of the games I'm unsure about.

I agree with Iwata that this is not the end-all solution for getting people to use the Shop Channel. After all, if they don't KNOW about the Shop Channel, demos on it aren't going to matter very much, are they? Two words, Nintendo: TV Commericals. Do it. Do it now.

Just remember people if you read the whole article on it, right now it is only for a very small number of games and they haven't even guaranteed its going to be tested in NA or EU. We still got a ways to go.

@Vaynard But one can hope.

Finally Iv'e been saying this for so long. Now we just need VC and retail demos.

Probably something like 1 level of each of the Art Style Series.

Doubt about retail and/or VC too, unless this really boosts the Wiiware sales a lot...

That's good news. Now more people can go download great NyxQuest and Driift mania since impressed by the demo versions.

Wait will we be able to keep it forever? Or is it like a trial? This still sounds cool.

actually this will probably reduce sales imo people wouldn't buy on impulse and find out games that sound good in theory aren't in practice

I'd imagine it'd work like the brawl demos bonii but for wiiware so i'd guess yes

It's about time that Nintendo did something like this! Now if only Nintendo could stop third party developers from releasing crappy games such as Ninjabreadman onto the Wii. Oh, does anyone know if DDI finally went out of business? I heard a rumor that they finally went under.

GREAT news. I hope this takes off.

VC demos plzkthnxbai.

_{Even though it'll never happen...:sadface:}

@Feenie
It's Nintendo so you never know.

VC Demos is what I really would like. There's just craploads of VC games that I simply know nothing about. With WiiWare it's pretty easy to tell if the game's going to be for me or not, but with the VC it's always a gamble. But WiiWare demos are cool, too. Not sure why they just wouldn't come out and do it for real instead of just a "test"--I don't see how this could hurt anything.

the games are already small, it'd just kill off any of the impulse buys that sell the only copies of some of that crap. I'm not saying thats bad for us, but it's not good business, since the games are already cheap, people shouldn't need any more hand holding.
Stuffgamer is totally right: TV commercials is all they need. I don't get why thats so hard for them to figure out.

FINALLY!!!! Now can we have some VC demos too?

This is a great idea and I'm glad to see it finally coming! These demos do work because without them I would never have been exposed to Big Bang Mini on the DS. It is a fantastic game and I would have never bought it if wasn't for the demo.

@ganondwarf16: It would cut down the sales of CRAP games, but it might very well increase the sales on good stuff that people like me can't afford to/refuse to take a random chance on! In other words, I think demos are good for quality control.

@Ren: I didn't say demos are a bad idea...I WANT demos for some WiiWare games I haven't risked my money on yet. But TV commercials are a MUST for getting people to realize the Shop Channel exists and has games they would want to play on it. Just mention Tetris and BOOM! New Shop Channel users. It's the #1 requested WiiWare game at GameStop, just because they don't know it's download-only.

Virtual Console needs demos too. The Nes ones will be like 5 blocks space and the N64 can be like 40 blocks.

Hurry!!! i want to test some ones. A 6-7 calification in Nintendo Life needs demos to see if are good games or not.

I'd rather have WiiWare demos, so this is a good thing.

About farking time, Nintendo.

Yes demos would be great. Especially in order to choose a puzzle game!

Finally? There are many games I want to get but I want to be sure I would like them, and Nintendo is so backwards as the other platforms offer demos on not only downloadable games but also on full retail games!

It's about damn time. I wonder what games they will use for the test program.

This is great news. I bet a lot of the cheaper games (500 points-800 points) won't have demos, because many suck, aren't much longer than most demos, and are cheap enough to impulse buy. This is great for larger games though. Shame they can't demo retail games though .

I can see this being a good thing. Better if retail demos become available. Would be nice if VC titles could be demo'd, too. They could do something like the demos on Super Smash Bros. Brawl, where you can play a game, with a time limit set to end the game, and the inablity to save progress.

...But only for the VC titles. For WiiWare titles, the demos released should be made by the developers. 'Cause I have seen articles where developers wish they could release demos of their games. This way the developers who dont wan't their games out in demo form won't be forced to. Plus full WiiWare titles would take a lot of memory, just to be allowed only 5 minutes of gametime before the game automatically ends.

@12. NINTENBOY
You can't be serious. Wii's storage is still too crappy for something like that.

Yes. Another point for Nintendo.

They could include this option in the Nintendo channel, I mean DS demos are already there...
And is it possible to make a message service? In that way, you can get a message when a new demo is available..

@48 Draygone

In Japan you can download TV shows with the Wii no ma channel, so it is possible.

Nintendo already have the technology to do lazy demos:
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Ticket
Enable time limit and time limit (seconds). But seriously, I hope they put some effort into them.

Free demos?!

finally. finally!

Any kind of demos is good news, though I still want retail demos more than anything (discs are still an option) For the price you pay and the amount of garbage out there, they should let you try before buy.

Yay. Maybe people will now stop actually paying for tat like that wordsearch game if they get to see how shallow it is first.

Finally! It's about time Nintendo!!

Hi NintendoLife Staff. I think you're going to have to hit your readership over the head with future news. Far too many people missed the title and the image and the copy that read "WIIWARE demos".

^ I would agree with that if it was much more guaranteed. I think people are missing that this is only for a few games right now and is not confirmed outside Japan. Iwata isn't even that confident about demos right now.

I would imagine that wiiware demos would probably be for the larger games around the 1000+ points mark and I would welcome them if done right.
The Brawl VC demos were very lazy relying on a very small time limit. What would be much better would be to either include one or two levels or the tutorial levels off of some games such as "swords and soldiers" etc.
It may be a pain to go back and make demos of already exsisting wiiware games but im sure that if Nintendo decide to go ahead with wiiware demos and dont charge 3rd party developers to put demos of their upcoming or existing wiiware games then im sure it wouldnt be too much of a problem to produce a demo and a full game at the same time, mabey they could include the option of buying the full game straight from the demo like you would buying DLC from some of the existing games.

I wasnt sure about retail demos, but considering how they managed to do a wiiware level of Punch Out im sure some retail games could manage to produce demos via the wiiware service.

I'd rather like to see VC game demos. As most of you probably know by now I'm not a huge WiiWare fan. I rarely download any games of that service at all unlike the VC.

@BellGoRiiing: My post was once edited too. Apparantly mentioning anything about being the first, whether it's spam or not, gets edited if you have the first post.

"First" comments are not tolerated here and will be either edited or deleted.