WiiWare Demo Program Demo Ending This Month

I do hope they bring this back in full force. This could really help sales of WiiWare titles and could also be a huge help on DSiWare as well.

First taking games off the market and now this? Fourtunatly, I have all the demos, and i have tried them all out, so its not that big a deal

I thought that after this batch, we'd get a new one just after... guess I thought wrong.

It will be back

why pull them?
just set up a dedicated demo icon or channel, and expand the demo offering
ms and sony are much better at getting demos out there

I also got the message on my wii. I hope that more demos come out.

Seems dumb to end it now. Hopefully it will return soon.

I got a good feeling it will return.

i forgot to download NyxQuest, i'll go download it tomorow

Does this mean that we will see the return of the WiiWare Top List again on Nintendo Life?

In Holland all the demo's have increased sales. All except Bit.Trip Beat made their way back in the top 15.

@WolfRamHeart, it has never been gone:
https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/wiiware/wiiware_top_17

Will they delete the demos we already downloaded from our Wiis? Or our we allowed to keep them?

Nintendo needs to make tons of changes to the Wii Shop storefront. Demos would be great, but honestly, I'd just like to see some damn screenshots of what games look like. How can anyone make a purchase decision based on NOTHING? How can you sell games without screenshots?

Hopefully Microsoft's Game Room will kick Nintendo's into gear a little. Of course, Nintendo lives in their own little bubble world, so I doubt they care about competition...

maybe the mass downloading of free stuff clogged the server?

It's so silly that they are removing them.

I have a feeling they're pulling these out now and building a demo service from the ground up to release later.

REMEMBER they only let us download demos to see if it would increase sales. They were testing before going full blown.

how large are the demos? how much of the games do they let you play?

I hope Caliko is right: I think the demo program is great and I hope they go full blown with this later.

When/if it DOES go full-out, it needs to have its own section on the Shop Channel so as not to get in the way in the WiiWare section. I hope Nintendo can set that up soon.

yeah I didn't realize this was a trial-basis kinda thing....

The demos were originally for a limited time anyway

I bet you that they are going to be replaced with new demos.

Nintendo's online system is an utter joke as a whole for both DSi and Wii. That lack of demos for anything is a staple of how clueless Nintendo is with their system.
I'm amazing, a company that prides itself on being innovative and all about fun can be so backwards when it comes to connecting online and digital content.
The Internet is not the devil Nintendo, it's okay to use it they way everyone else uses it.

@18 Luke: The demo for World of Goo is about half the size of the full download (full download was 320 blocks). I've studied the installation directories on my PC for both the demo and full versions. Only the first world map is playable on the World of Goo demo. Most of the sound effects and graphics that aren't utilized in world 1 are not included in the demo, thus the file size is considerably smaller. World of Goo is the only game I have both the demo and the full version on my Wii, so I can't vouch for the others.

I recall posting something here but it appears to be gone, did I say something inappropriate?

@24 Hardy83: Nintendo is very innovative when it comes to their systems, but they don't play ball with the big Sony and Microsoft. They've got their own ideas about how the game should be played; it's like Nintendo is shooting hoops on the basketball court while Sony and M$ are kicking goals on the soccer field. Since Nintendo can't compete with Sony and Microflop, they've got to make up their own game and play by their own rules, and the Wii has become a great slam dunk for Nintendo. By always keeping the ball in their court, they've survived somehow all of these years. And though there are some things about Nintendo we may not agree with, we are all Nintendo fans here, or we wouldn't have joined up with a website called Nintendo Life.

I don't find Nintendo's business practices bad as much as they are weird. Their online services are clunky at best and dsi doesn't even have a system code. The software side has really picked up for WiiWare and DSiWare (especially the latter. I was worried for a moment). I just wish that a studio that focuses on new users would create more user friendly interfaces.

@StarDust
I am a Nintendo fan and will admit that Nintendo does innovate, when it needs to, but for so many other things they are just so arse backwards and behind the times it's just pathetic.
This whole, we'll do it our way or no way it just dumb. They tried that in Japan with video content and they end up just going with Netflix over here like every other company but very poorly and over a year too late.

Sometimes you should innovate and sometimes you should just adopt.

I'm not totally bashing Nintendo, but I'm not going to ignore all the amazing technical and social innovation that's going in the video game industry that Nintendo is either ignoring or just too stubborn to admit that it's a good idea and use it for the benefit of their customers.

Like, the demo system. They have DS demos (I'm sure 99% of Wii owners doesn't even realize they exist though) but no constant WiiWare demos? REALLY?

@Hardy
Their competition adopts but rarely innovates so nothing's perfect. Social is different for them as well as they have local games as well as games that are meant to be as fun to watch as they are to play. Another social experience would be games where you show off your DIY stuff like Flipnote and MvsDK.

I personally upload photos from my dsi to facebook more often than not so everyone's opinion is different. My only real problem is that when the competition copies Nintendo. Nintendo SHOULD adopt as well as deliver the next big thing.

Everyone that does WiiWare or DSiWare has been yelling to get some support. Nintendo, with this Demo programme, has gone a good step in the right direction.
And now, they just take that step back. What. The. Hell.
Seriously, I just cannot grasp the logic behind it.

Also, when they finally bring it back, why did they not link to the demo from the game's in-shop page? Or, just like with the DS games in the My Nintendo channel, why don't they link you to the demo from there? Or a link in the shop channel to the My Nintendo channel page of that game, so people can read about it. In fact, why not merge the Shop Channel and Nintendo Channel altogether, that way all information about all games is in one place, and you'd have a nicer store. Another something that seems like it wasn't thought through... They need to do more to push these games, that we know. But when they finally create the means to, they implement them poorly.

So...was that a yes or a no to reinstating the Wiiware lists? I did like glancing over at those.

Anyway, is the demo service just ending for non-japanese regions? I do remember Japan getting a second set of demos that other territories never got.

Why can't they just have normal demos like everyone else!

Well if anything, if they are going to remove them (for now). Then I bet if they want to return them then it'll be around the Gamers Development Conference (much like the debut of the SD Card channel and the VCA).

Speaking of VCA, I hope we get a bunch more once the GDC happens in March.

If they delete my Rumble demo I'll be sad. I like it, but not enough to buy it, just yet. I hope they don't steal the demo from me.

If a fresh batch of demo's doesn't follow this deadline, I shall be disappointed. Go Ninty! Gimme treats! Ones I haven't already downloaded this time please.

I'm hopeful they will reinstate it with a full-blown range of demos. The program has proven itself, so I see no reason why Ninty wouldn't.

Two games that I only tried because to the demos are the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A Darklord and Pokemon Rumble.games. They really surprised me with being...fun. Different than I'm used to, but fun.

@Brain: This demo service was going to be for a limited time anyway (it said so in the Wii Shop Channel). Anyway, I think that this service was an experiment done by Nintendo to see how consumers would respond to the demos. So far it's been successful, so we might see even more demos later on

I remember they said demo services are dumb and don't work. Which makes sense with out tucked away the DS demos are, so of course they don't work.

And @Atlantis1982 I bet your right. I bet they will reintroduce a system update for the Wii making demos a permanent thing and pat themselves on the back claiming they are great innovators at gaming, and then a couple people will yell at me when I again say that Nintendo is just behind the times on so many thing, not everything, but so many things.

They really need to have demos, and across the board. No "limited selection". I'm sitting on a stockpile of points and I haven't used almost any of them, because I hate being burned. I'm always worried I'm going to be disappointed and with a download there's no reselling it, you're just screwed. So they need demos as a standard for all download games, WiiWare and DSiWare.

When Nintendo has removed things from the Wii Shop in the past they've kept the data there. Only they've deleted basically the pages about it (so you can re-download them if you've already got them, it is just people who have never downloaded them won't see them).

Bad move and compared to Sony, N's way of doing demos still sucked. I'm very disappointed infact, we should have more demos.I totally agree with crunc.

This is some serious crap. I was so glad to see nintendo finally realizing its 1999 anymore and realizing they need demos for their games. I downloaded all the demos the first week, and I plan on buying nyxquest because of it. I'm sure it costs near nothing to them, but the way they implemented it made it near impossible to find the demos, much like how they organized the wii demos, so its their own **** fault the program is failing. And last weeks update was just plain sad, no wonder their online program as a whole is failing. So that will lead them to believe online is not the way to go, just because they suck at it! UGH! I love nintendo games but I'll leave them for good next generation if they continue this streak.

Why pull the demos when WW sales skyrocketed because of them? Uncool...

Nintendo is so far behind in the times.

Whatever. There should have been more support for this in the first place.