GDC 08: All about WiiWare

If you’re hungry for more information about WiiWare, then open wide as none other than Nintendo of America‘s Tom Prata is heaping up a full-course banquet, and it’s all about Nintendo’s upcoming service for the Nintendo Wii. From the target developer market to what sort of content we should be expecting come May 12, it’s a smorgasbord, and you only need to click on the Read More button to get your fill.

Curious about Nintendo’s upcoming service for the Nintendo Wii, WiiWare? Then sit right back as we feed you the info you need straight from this year’s GDC, where none other than Nintendo of America‘s Tom Prata has revealed a lot of neat details about it, from just how many titles we can expect at launch to what sort of control scheme we should expect with the majority of the downloadable content. Awesome!

So, first things first. When May 12 hits (the WiiWare launch), there should be around 100 games available. But we won’t be able to download them all at once. Instead, Nintendo’s adopting a release style similar to that of the Virtual Console, where only a few titles are released each week. We won’t be able to download demos, either, so we’ll either have to rely on the Everybody’s Nintendo Channel to get an idea of what’s hot and what’s not. Ouch.

For the developers, it seems that the notion of anybody being able to choose to develop games for WiiWare isn’t quite what Nintendo has in mind. Instead, the WiiWare developer kits will only be available if you’re already a licensed developer, in both your field and Nintendo’s.

The good news, though, is that you won’t have to use everything on the kit to have your game deemed as acceptable by Nintendo’s standards. So if your game is fully multiplayer but doesn’t take advantage of the motion-sensing, then it’s perfectly alright.

Seems like there’s a lot more to the WiiWare service than we once thought. Hit up the via link for more information.