Finally meeting up with a system that the PS3 and Xbox 360 digital download systems have had from day one, Nintendo will soon begin offering playable demos for its downloadable WiiWare games.
But here are a couple pretty major caveats. At least at first, it looks like the amount of WiiWare games that offer demos will be very few and far between. And even when Nintendo does put up a free demo for players to download, it’ll only be available “for a a limited time.”
PS3 and Xbox 360 users have grown accustomed to seeing huge sections devoted to free game demos on their respective digital download stores. Wii owners, however, have not had that luxury, and when it comes to WiiWare games there may be literally no coverage or outside details available at all. This leads to frequent blind buying of WiiWare content, or in the worse scenario, a lost sale. Nintendo previously had no infrastructure to allow for game demos on the Wii Shop Channel, but it will now.
The demo section will become available on November 22. Bit Trip Fate, And Yet It Moves, ThruSpace, and Jett Rocket demos are the flagship titles set to go live on that date. The Wii Shop will be continuously updated with new demos as part of the digital store’s regular Monday updates.
It’s not exactly an earth-shattering move, but it is always nice to see Nintendo kinda, sorta, almost matching the kind of services available on the PS3 and Xbox 360.
