Though its potential can't be denied, Nintendo's Wii Ware channel, an upcoming download service for new Wii games, didn't impress us much with the seemingly low-budget titles announced for it so far. Nintendo amended that worriment today at its Tokyo conference by revealing a lineup of impressive projects in progress, turning our "Excitement Level" knob to eleven, one measure greater than what we previously thought the mechanism allowed.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Little King and the Promised Land (1500 Wii Points, March), a "country-building sim," stands out from the bunch, promising an exclusive side story which takes place after the original GameCube game. This marks the fourth entry to the series and the second Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles title announced for the Wii. Square Enix has already made a teaser site for you to load up and immediately close once you've realized that there's almost nothing there yet.
Hudson, having kept things on and poppin' on the Virtual Console side for some time now, demonstrated its commitment to the new service by announcing new games like Bomberman, Star Soldier R, and Joysound, the last of which will be a karaoke title. Namco Bandai also chimed in with Mojipittan, a Japanese word puzzle game.
As for Nintendo's contributions to the Wii Ware channel, the company announced Dr. Mario (!!!), Pokemon Farm, Puzzloop for Everyone, and Maruboushikaku, all of which appearing to have some form of Mii integration. You can preview screenshots for those titles at the Famitsu links below.
Read - FFCC: The Little King and the Promised Land teaser site
Read - FFCC: The Little King and the Promised Land screenshots
Read - Star Soldier R screenshots
Read - Mojipittan screenshots
Read - Dr. Mario, Pokemon Farm, Puzzloop for Everyone, and Maruboushikaku screenshots
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-10-2007 @ 9:52AM
mark richardson said...
ive been reading all over the net today about all the wii ware news thast been released and i have to say its slightly exciting!
some good looking things will be arriving roon by the looks of it and for me not soon enough!
i also ready somewhere a rumour that nintendo had also announced a hard drive for the Wii has anyone heard anything about this?
i find it highly unlikely (although i want one so bad) as i havent been able to find any other information on it anywhere its all prob just hearsay or somone mistaking what another person has says and thinking its gosple.
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10-10-2007 @ 10:04AM
mgroves said...
It's great...but how does a karaoke channel work, since you can't download a microphone?
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10-10-2007 @ 10:39AM
vidGuy said...
Damint. Reggie said when the Wii launched that no download, VC game or new release (WiiWare), would be more than USD$10, or 1000 Wii Points. I guess that $12 N64 game (what was it, OoT?) broke that promise already, but even if that FF game is great, it's still a quandary at $15. That's a lot of coin for a digital download, IMO.
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10-10-2007 @ 10:41AM
Mike said...
Wii Ware is the Wii's ace in the hole. They have to churn out some killer stuff, and soon.
I haven't been a big fan of the Crystal Chronicles series, but this "kingdom builder" I'm looking forward to.
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10-10-2007 @ 11:36AM
Mabui said...
A Karaoke channel would be pretty cool, imagine being able to stream in a song onto your game from their servers to try it out, or choose to buy it and downloaded it down to your machine.
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10-10-2007 @ 3:37PM
Archibold said...
I wonder what this means for the original Dr. Mario showing up on the Virtual Console...
Still, this is looking good.
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10-10-2007 @ 5:08PM
Mr Khan said...
What a day indeed
Full realization for WiiWare, but my country-building sim is reserved for King's Story
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10-10-2007 @ 6:57PM
futuregrace said...
Dr. Mario is one of the best party games ever. My family still hooks up the 64 to play it over holidays. Can't wait!!
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10-10-2007 @ 9:36PM
ArmorForVictor said...
Now Let's Hope They Reveal A Wii Hard Drive Soon So We Can Store All Those WiiWare Games Along WIth Our VC Games.
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10-11-2007 @ 11:08AM
James said...
Eh, I've got a 1GB SD card sitting in my Wii (been there since I discovered that I always win my Excite Truck races when Thunderstruck is playing in the background); as long as I can shuffle things off the internal flash onto that, I should be good to go for a while.
As far as I'm concerned, Wii Ware is just trying to play catch-up with XBLA and PSN. I'm glad they're doing it, don't get me wrong, but frankly it's about frickin' time.
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