It's a downloadable zoo out there.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/23730
This week brings eight releases in total, divided into three for WiiWare, and five for DSiWare.
First to take the WiiWare stage is Nintendo's own AquaSpace. For 600 Wii Points ($6), you can have your own virtual, interactive, customisable aquarium that you can visit with your Miis. It includes fish feeding, fish facts, fish following, fish feeling, but not fish fur, which takes us the next game, Furry Legends from Gamelion. The 3D platformer takes place in bizarre Furland, where animals have mutated into fluffy, oddly-shaped creatures that can, amongst their various skills, time travel to save their strange world from Lord Squarie. All this fur can be yours for 1,000 Wii Points ($10).
The last WiiWare game of the week is HoopWorld by Virtual Toys, which combines three-on-three, arcade-style basketball with a mythical fantasy theme. Ruined temples are transformed into basketball courts so you can play for a world ranking, for 1,000 Wii Points ($10).
On DSiWare this week, Ubisoft's efforts bring newborn kittenz to DSi, with Petz Kittens available for 800 DSi Points ($8). When questioned about the title, our Features Editor and "-z" game fetishist James Jones told me that it's the 6th Catz-based Petz game you can play on the DS if you count the GBA version, with a far higher number when you include other systems.
EA tests out Scrabble Tools, a supplement to Scrabble games that includes vocabulary and strategy exercises, but no extra blank tiles. Next up is Hospital Havoc by Hands-On Mobile, letting you manage a doctor in a hospital with everything from wacky patients to zombies. With a content description of "Mild Cartoon Violence", it might not be the safest place to go when you're sick.
Happy Birthday Mart from Pixel Federation brings back the animals, who visit your store to buy gifts for their friends. They must be a raucous crowd, as well as selling the gifts, you also must clean up after them and mend broken shelves. Download any of these three for 500 DSi Points ($5).
Concluding this week's DSiWare is dtp entertainment's Crazy Sudoku. The five difficulty levels, choice of grid sizes, and per square Note feature seem only mildly eccentric, but if you're interested it'll set you back 200 DSi Points ($2).
As for Wario Ware: DIY's Big Name Games, the penultimate week brings just a few more games from Treehouse, localisation experts at Nintendo of America.
BARF!
Oh hey look no...*yawwwwn* Shantae....
Not in here, mister! This is a Mercedes! ;)
Serious question: are there any virtual fish tank games available for Wii?
Serious question: are there any virtual fish tank games available for Wii?
Serious question: are there any virtual fish tank games available for Wii?
I live for my art, and yet no one understands me.
I think this says that Nintendo needs to open up their service to homebrew (like XBL Community Games) since they obviously have low standards for quality.
They basically already have, which is exactly why the quality is so poor on WiiWare. The standard for becoming a licensed Wii developer are really low -- you need an office address and $2000 for a development kit. I don't think there are any upfront costs for submitting a WiiWare game to the Shop Channel, except for the ESRB rating fee, which is discounted for games that cost less than $25,000 to develop.That's not really true according to rejection letters some devs have posted online-- you also have to somehow demonstrate experience, which seems to be an arbitrary, luck-of-the-draw judgment. I'm not sure if there's any way to guarantee developer status. It's almost like you have to develop for a competitor before you can develop for Nintendo, or at least have the right ties. Also, talking with some smaller devs at GDC, several have said that the up-front costs are too much for them -- these are ones developing Wii Remote-controlled games for PC. So, I don't know who to believe. Maybe it's the fact that you don't get paid anything until you perform at a certain level-- that's certainly a major deterrent. The office address requirement is a poor filter since obviously there is better homebrew out there -- without even using Nintendo's SDK -- than much of what's available on the service. Nintendo charging at both ends is an outdated model that, unfortunately, they can afford to keep up.
