Post by: Jonnyboy117 on September 29, 2008, 11:47:49 AM
Regular readers will know that we have been critical of Nintendo's WiiWare support. Before today, their only releases were a bland port of Dr. Mario and the mostly useless Pokemon Ranch… and neither was developed in-house. With no more WiiWare games announced, we didn't expect any first-party downloadable titles until at least 2009.
That outlook changed in a big way with today's release of Orbient. It's an expanded remake of Orbital, one of the Bit Generation games released only in Japan for Game Boy Advance. Bit Generation was a series of six simple, stylish games designed to launch with the fashionable Game Boy Micro, though they played on all GBA and DS systems. Skip (creators of Chibi-Robo and Captain Rainbow) developed five of the games, while the sixth came from Q-Games, now well known for their PixelJunk brand on PS3. Many Nintendo fans longed for a worldwide release of the Bit Generation series, and it seems we may finally be getting it, albeit it in a completely unexpected way.
Along with the out-of-nowhere release of Orbient on WiiWare, with extra levels and a price of only $6, Nintendo has also created a new sub-brand called Art Style. For now, I can only assume this is a rebranding of Bit Generation, although there may be some brand new games planned for the series. With two more Art Style games headed for WiiWare in October alone, chances are good that we'll see even more of the "lost" Bit Generations games on our TV screens this year.
I just want to say to Nintendo: good job on delivering a fantastic surprise to your "hardcore" American audience. The irony is that Bit Generation titles are mostly casual-oriented, but the origin of these games and their bizarre gameplay ideas will not go unnoticed by your long-standing fan base. Keep 'em coming, and I'll keep downloading.
Post by: KDR_11k on September 29, 2008, 02:30:07 PM
I think I'd buy even the two I own (Digidrive, Boundish) on the Wii again. I wonder what enhancements the other games will get...
Post by: vudu on September 29, 2008, 02:43:22 PM
Speaking of which, is NWR going to start reviewing WiiWare (and VC) games again?
Post by: Yoshidious on September 29, 2008, 02:46:06 PM
Skip:
Boundish, Coloris, Dialhex, Dotstream, Orbital, Soundvoyager
Q-Games:
Digidrive
So the total is actually 7, of which I own 4 (Digidrive, Dotstream, Orbital, and Soundvoyager). Boundish is based on Pong I think, with Coloris and Dialhex both being puzzle games. Of the 4 I own, Orbital's probably the best, but they're all cool in their own way.
Post by: Nick DiMola on September 29, 2008, 02:56:25 PM
Post by: Kairon on September 29, 2008, 08:39:27 PM
I wonder if Nintendo will also run student created games through WiiWare? I know that in Japan they had some sort of wall of student created GBA experimental games didn't they?
Post by: Jonnyboy117 on September 29, 2008, 09:22:59 PM
Sorry about getting the number of BG games wrong. That's the difference between a news article and a blog post! I just spewed this out in five minutes after reading this morning's press release, and there was no editing process to discover the error. But I'm not concerned with it, either. ;-)
Post by: Infernal Monkey on September 29, 2008, 10:03:12 PM
Also guys, please don't try and shove them in either of the silly 'casual' or 'hardcore' memes. ;__; The industry has already suffered enough brain damage this generation trying to seperate video games. That'd be like trying to decide who Space Invaders was for.
Post by: Djunknown on September 29, 2008, 11:33:33 PM
Nintendo has also created a new sub-brand called Art Style.
Games are art now? ;)
Post by: Jonnyboy117 on September 29, 2008, 11:35:22 PM
Games are art now? ;)
Speaking of gaming memes that should go extinct...
Post by: KDR_11k on September 30, 2008, 07:27:32 AM
I <3 dotstream. How are the bit generations games casual? They harken back to a simpler, purer era of gaming... and that seems to me most hardcore.
That's the expanded market, as opposed to the core market. When you complain that Nintendo needs more core games you are saying they should NOT do this and focus on expsnive, complex blockbusters instead. When Nintendo goes for the expanded market that means they do MORE of this. Hardcore and casual are meaningless dickwaggery labels anyway that imply a dichtomy that does not exist (a person can belong to the expanded and core market at the same time, casual and hardcore puts a strict either-or division into place).
