WiiWare Demos Launch This Week with Four New Downloads

limited time is stupid...

It's great having demos but having them time limited and only having a couple that they choose to force on us completely defeats the purpose imo.

We need to be able to easily look through all the games available, with proper screens and videos etc, and then choose a demo for whatever game/s we are actually interested in knowing more about in the first place.

How hard is it for Nintendo to get how this is supposed to work, seriously!

How hard is it for Nintendo to get how this is supposed to work, seriously!

I'm thinking that publishers have to approach Nintendo with demo versions of games - Nintendo won't do the work for them. If the publishers choose not to approach Nintendo then there won't be any demos. I'll be sure to download all four of these demos, I don't own these games already.

Erm, that was fast. Downloading three demos later, as I already have Jett Rocket. Looking forward to the rest!

@Chicken This is just for Europe at the moment, not sure if those will be available in the States. I hope so, though!

That'll teach me to respond to news items first thing in the morning. I'll be back with a more coherent post later this evening.

Don't disappoint me again.

Sweet. Demos for 3DS will probably be permanent though! But Nintendo aren't the only ones having temporarily downloadable demos. Steam very often have limited time demos, and even some full versions that only work for a certain time and then need to be bought... Although yeah, isn't it better the more people try the games? How many people actually settle for only a demo? In case the games are bad, I can see how it could decrease sales, but then you probably shouldn't let people try it out in the first place!

I'll be downloading all of them Too bad that it's a limited time thing, but at least we'll be getting new demos every new and then.

Isn't there anything else coming out this week? DSiWare or VC? The subtitle of that press release kind of implies there should be more.

Oh, bollocks. I already bought Zombie Panic and hated it. These downloads were just a little too late.

YES! I'll DL all of them and play through all of them, plus the ones that I still have from the last set of demoes. I'm sure the U.S. will get the demoes on Monday, btw.

thank goodness, I'll probably download all of them to try them out. It's about time Nintendo!

I'll try Jett Rocket.

Isn't there anything else coming out this week?

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=21084

@Lifer Yep, we're running the download later today

If it comes to the US, i'll be downloading Jett Rocket for sure!

Whoo! Havent played any of these! Then again, the only demo that convinced me of anything last time was BEAT, but maybe one of these will jump out at me

Come to the US please!

You should state that this is for Europe only in the title or sub-title.

So, you download them to the your SD card to play them forever?.. I miss the days of gaming when you could buy a magazine with a demo disc each month that had like 10 games on it.

I hope we get the Jett Rocket and ThruSpace demos too.

@Juampi The US shop gets updated on Monday and the very first sentence states it's Europe, but as you wish!

Hopefully this will come to the US at some point. Either way, HOORAY!!!

I came in here all happy, but then I saw Europe.

@James: I know, but for someone who is in a hurry and has the time to just scan the titles, it could be misleading...

Europe...

I see no reason to complain. Download them all to your SD card and you'll have them for eternity! (In fact, I still have my NyxQuest demo!)

I'm going to collect them all! I'm guessing that the US will be getting these next Monday,

this sounds good i think i know why they make it limited time only, they want to give a chance to all games

Its a shame, cause if these come to Australia on Friday (which they probably will) We will only get 3 out of the 4 games.

@16: WHAT? Is Bit.Trip Fate pushed back for at least 2 weeks? No way . Although I am happy that we have WiiWare demos back, I'm disappointed that I have to wait longer before I can play Bit.Trip Fate. I don't know if I can refrain from looking at the spoilers in the Bit.Trip Fate topic any longer...

Finally a demo service! I'll download surely all of them!

Why does it matter? The Wii Shop Channel doesn't update until Monday in the States

I bought "Zombie Panic In Wonderland" when it came out. It's great fun!

Why is it so hard to keep them up forever? Nintendo keeps bragging about it's huge hardware sales numbers, well these games won't be able to market to those people (or people who don't go on the Wii Shop very often and miss them).

I get that they're probably trying to focus on a few games at a time to up their specific sales more during a short period of time, then they'll move onto some more games. Still, I'd prefer they just got as many as possible up and kept them there for perusal at one's leisure.

I only have Furry Legends, so I'll be getting the rest if/when they come to the US for sure. I LOVE demos.

You know how DS demos are supposed to be a limited time too? They barely are anymore. I'm not talking about stuff like Brain Age and Rhythm Heaven, the Ace Attorney Investigations Demo is still there. It's like when a DS Demo is added, it's practically permanent. The same might happen to WiiWare after some time.

I all ready have Furry Legends and Zombie Panic in Wonderland but have been wanting to try Jett Rocket.

Awesome I can't wait to check this out... oh wait, I still don't have my Wii back, oh fudge!

Wait, limited time? But I don't have a Wii yet! Aww, nuts.

Nice, I hope we get these next week in the US. I want to try Zombie Panic in Wonderland and Thru Space. I already have the other two.

A Swing and a Miss Nintendo......

I hope we get this in the US too. I do want to try Jett Rocket, Furry Legends, and Zombie Panic. Maybe Thru Space. Wiiware demos as an ongoing service is a great idea! Glad they are finally doing this.

@SMW. As someone who lacks regular internet access with their Wii (Christmas is the next chance I get, then possibly easter but it could be as late as September) the prospect of demos vanishing seems more like a punishment than an incentive (as I can't change my situation, no UDP traffic for anything meaning no Xbox live and no PSN...given NOA recommend UDP traffic to all destinations for Wii connections I can only assume the Wii is the same, but I'm not buying an adapter to find out as I know it'll be a waste of money).

There might be a loophole though.

Nice, I hope they cycle them more regularly than the nintendo channel demos though, and last time I ended up buying 3 of the demo'd games i hadn't ever planned on buying, as did quite a few people, so Its about time nintendo decided they want more money

Disappointing list of demos to say the least. I already own Jett Rocket and have next to no interest in even trying Zombie Panic and Furry Legends. I guess I'd check out ThruSpace though. Any game with Nintendo's name on it gets my attention, even WiiWare.

These demos appearing on the Wii shop for a limited time only completely misses the point of offering demos in the first place.

What if two months down the line (assuming that's how long they're in the shop for), I'm looking for something to buy, but the demos are already expired. Am I supposed to download them all straight away.

It might work, and it might be easy, but that's not what a demo should be.

Why is Nintendo restricting the time a demo is up for anyway?

Dear Wii Demos,
Come to NA now, please.
Merci.

@edhe: Because Nintendo hates us

Nintendo really needs to sort this. I was hoping for something more expansive than four games, but in the meantime I'll be happy to give Furry Legends a go - the only one of these I've not reviewed/previewed as it turns out!

i hope Jett Rocket gets a ton of sales due this this exposure...such a cool platformer.

Shin'en gets the rights to remake my life as a Wiiware game.

Awesome. Got something to do this weekend.

JETT ROCKET! That game looks fun

I was like, "Jett Rocket! Cool!.... Europe. Oh."

hah, wow I"m actually interested in ALL of those games and would easily gobble up demos of them all!

@edhe They should just do 10 min demos of the full games or whatever and leave them alone so people might be enticed to continue playing.

Nintendo really, REALLY has an aversion to hosting free content. You'd think they get billed by the bit or something.

But in essence, as WarioFAn63 pointed out, this is based on the DS demo service, which is temporary... sort of... But then, they have the bonus of the user not being able to save the demo, so you never know, but it's likely some demos will be hosted longer than others.

And yes, I'd expect 3DS demos to be similar in nature... Either unsaveable and nigh-eternally hosted or saveable and only available for a limited time.

They really need a shop redesign to accomodate this better. Using up slots in the recent releases tab isn't terribly helpful or clever. Of course we don't know what's happening behind the scenes.

Could there be a shop relaunch to coincide with the 3DS release?

Are developers being told they can submit playable demos along with their game during the lotcheck process?

If Nintendo really regards Apple as their competition then they need to do a much better job of sprucing up their walled garden of software downloads.

like i just said on FB, i think it'd be better if Nintendo were able to change around the Nintendo Channel to do the demos through there as opposed to the Wii Shop. that way we wouldn't have to search through the actual shop for the separate demo entry, no one would have to worry about the demos screwing up the Top 20s, the demos would be right there where all the game info is, and if Ninty really doesn't like people keeping the demos, they could always make it so that the demos can't be saved to your Wii. idk, sounds like overall win to me.

Jett Rocket was fun...but short. It's the perfect game for a demo as it's level based and fun so people will buy it, but then it's over quick.

Demos are good, no matter how they handle it, some demos are better than no demos. Maybe Nintendo can get this worked out now so we can have retail game demos when the Wii/2/HD comes out.

Too little too late. All WiiWare games should have an always available demo. Also you should be able to unlock the full game the same way as is done on the 360: pick a menu item and in a few seconds the full game is unlocked. No downloading an entirely separate version. But that's secondary. There's just no excuse for not having demos for all games available all the time. They could add the demos gradually over time if that's necessary, but they shouldn't be pulling them after a limited time. It's pathetic. I buy a lot more stuff on the 360 for this very reason. Of course there's other games I don't buy because I didn't like the demo (Super Meat Boy, for example), but that's good for the service too - it means buyers far less frequently have "buyers remorse" and have a good feeling about the service. WiiWare is a disaster.

And I seriously hope they get it right with the sequel to the Wii, and that that sequel is in our hands next year. My purchases for the Wii, even disc-based games, are tailing off. I no longer really even want to buy anything for the Wii any more due to things like lack of demos, no real achievements system (something I didn't think I was going to like, but I really like it on the 360), poorer online (albeit free - can't knock that!), etc. The first party games are still going to get occasional love, but I really doubt I'll buy another 3rd party game ever again, except perhaps for DDR as I can use my good dance pads for it and annoyingly can't on the 360. I wish that I could. Certainly not anything that's cross-platform. The Wii's days are numbered whether Nintendo wants to believe it or not. This Christmas season is going to be a rough one for Nintendo, and I think thats's actually a good thing. It will be a wake up call.

Lots of games on WW, but I don't wanna spend 1/2 a points card on a game I may not like. If server space is an issue, N needs to spend some of the money they've made in the past few years, & upgrade to more servers ~ 1st priority some dedicated to online gaming, 2cd priority some dedicated to Shop/Nintendo channels, & 3rd priority the other channels.

I definitely see the frustration here. I've really never touched a 360 except for a few times, but it seemed instantly more accessible. The second you boot up the 360, it presents you with trailers and demos you might be interested in downloading. Meanwhile, Nintendo hides everything they're doing inside the Wii Shop Channel and Nintendo Channel and offers you obscure "chances" to get demos before time runs out (but only if you happen to check this stuff yourself every day, because Nintendo never seems to try contacting you about anything). It doesn't make any sense, and Nintendo seems to make an actual conscious effort to hide streaming/downloadable content from Wii owners, hoping they won't find it and use precious bandwidth.

When the Wii was announced and Miyamoto was telling us about how we'd just wake up in the morning and see the disc slot glowing blue and it'd be like Christmas as you look at all the news and content Nintendo has delivered to you, I expected to turn my Wii on and instantly be bombarded with demos, videos, maybe even articles or even just pretty pictures. But no... because the channel menu is always so dead and disconnected from the channels that inhabit it.

I honestly don't care about online multiplayer, but I do care about content delivery. Whether Nintendo decides to up their game with online multiplayer in the next generation, I really don't care, but they absolutely have to start delivering content to our consoles without time limits and without hiding them in obscure channels that we have to scout out ourselves every day.

As it is, you can own a 360 and not actually own a single game and still get several days of gameplay out of it just by perusing demos. Can't say the same for the Wii.