The philosophy behind WiiWare runs that developers are responsible for their own product (with Nintendo providing only the platform and some rudimentary technical approval), and are able to take advantage of a distribution channel that cuts out middlemen as well as obviously removing the need for costly physical inventories (just as is the case with Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, of course). It should, Nintendo’s theory goes, lead to more creative and risky game concepts finding their way to the Wii userbase.

In reality, many of the launch titles fail to throw up any considerable innovation. Dr Mario & Germ Buster is a reheated mashup; TV Show King is a Buzz-alike party quiz; Toki Tori has been seen before on Game Boy Color; and Star Soldier R is a version of a bonus mode included in an older game. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King may be a new idea for the Final Fantasy series, but it’s one that has been explored by other small-scale town builders.

Nintendo counters simply that it will take developers a while to get to grips with what the new service offers, and points to the time it took for third-party developers to get a handle on the DS and Wii interfaces. It would be a fair point, except we’re talking about a platform and interface that has become firmly established, and with titles like Bomberman on the horizon it looks like the offerings on WiiWare will, for the foreseeable future, feature a good deal of familiar material.

A certain amount of ports and shovelware are inevitable, of course, but the low barrier to entry (a developer has only to be a Nintendo licensee in order to publish WiiWare titles; it does not need to acquire a specific publishing agreement for each game) will no doubt make it tempting to bang out rehashes with the aim of generating some easy cash.

There are aspects to the WiiWare picture that should be of concern not only to consumers but developers, too. First, Nintendo will not be concentrating any significant marketing spend on the service – journalists attending Nintendo’s preview event last month were told that it was their job to spread the word about WiiWare titles via reviews and other coverage.

Second, there is no dedicated WiiWare channel in the Wii menu, and titles are purchased via the familiar Virtual Console interface, which doesn’t stand up well next to, say, XBLA’s – beyond a ‘popular titles’ category, WiiWare has no room for a ‘game of the week’ or other nudges to the customer. The upcoming Nintendo Channel may address this, but if the WiiWare trickle turns to a flood, it’s easy to imagine original, unfamiliar IP, released without any fanfare or promotion, getting somewhat lost in the pipe.

The third point concerns Nintendo’s claim to be completely hands-off – allowing developers to independently choose what content their games will feature, and where they will be released, etc – because a company working on WiiWare tells us that it was ‘encouraged’ by Nintendo to prepare its game for the respective worldwide launches of the service. Because of the structure of the initiative, WiiWare developers are wholly responsible for having their titles rated, translated and legally checked for each of these regions, so such encouragement naturally adds pressure to the process of bringing a game to market.

moscalloutWhen a question about the limited Wii system memory was raised, Nintendo's Laurent Fischer slipped into talking about how “geeks and otaku” were the only people who would want this issue addressed/moscalloutAs is always the case with Nintendo’s press events nowadays, the dirty word ‘casual’ was raised at its WiiWare preview, only to be dismissed in favor of a distinction between gamers and non-gamers. Playing these semantic games is fine, but when a pertinent question about the limited Wii system memory was raised, Laurent Fischer, managing director of marketing at NOE, easily slipped into talking about how “geeks and otaku” were the only people who would want this issue addressed. This is oversimplifying something that will only become increasingly important as Wii developers explore the console’s online service, whether through WiiWare or DLC, and is of concern to not only a niche section of the market that wants to buy into that content.

Clearly there are many good things to be said about WiiWare, not only that it has already delivered something exceptional in the form of LostWinds, which Nintendo will surely hope proves as inspiration to the worldwide dev community. But the company needs to be clearer about its hands-on involvement with and support for the service. Right now, and in stark contrast to the clear strategies it has in place for its DS and Wii hardware, it is sending out some very mixed messages.

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