Yes, I know the Wii already had downloadable games in the Virtual Console. That’s not the news here. What we’re talking about is original games made for the Wii, like what you see on the Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network.
I think everyone and their mother expected this coming, but the dreadlocked wonder, N’Gai Croal, has the scoop for us, with an official press release expected later today.
In the same fashion as the XBLA and PSN, Nintendo isn’t just looking to the big guns (ie. Ubisoft and Sega) to make WiiWare games, but all the small development houses as well. They might be working on some first party games as well.
Shorter, original, more creative games from small teams with big ideas; these are the buzzwords that you’ll be hearing from Nintendo when its Wednesday announcement goes wide.
Sounds like a plan. Nintendo is only taking care of bug checking for the developers, who must secure their own rating from the ESRB and do all the major testing themselves. We can expect to see the first games for WiiWare coming in 2008.
