WiiWare officieel door Nintendo aangekondigd

Vandaag liet [tag]Reggie Fils-Aime[/tag] van [tag]Nintendo of America[/tag] in een interview weten dat developers via een nieuw [tag]Wii Channel[/tag] downloadable games zullen kunnen aanbieden. Ook voor dit nieuwe kanaal dat 'WiiWare' wordt genoemd zul je [tag]Wii Points[/tag] moeten gebruiken. [tag]Nintendo[/tag] gaat hiermee dus dezelfde weg op als [tag]Microsoft[/tag] met haar Xbox Live Arcade. De bedoeling is dat kleine developers met een laag budget toch nog hun titels kunnen aanbieden. Prijzen voor deze games zijn nog niet bekend en verwacht wordt dat het nieuwe Wii-Kanaal ergens begin 2008 zal verkrijgbaar zijn in het [tag]Winkel-Kanaal[/tag]. Tijdens de [tag]E3[/tag] zullen we ongetwijfeld meer te weten komen van dit nieuwe kanaal.

SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 27, 2007 – The search for the next ingeniously ground-breaking video game has begun. At a private developers conference this week, Nintendo announced the introduction of WiiWare™, a game-creation service that will allow developers large and small to create new downloadable video game content for sale by Nintendo through the Wii Shop Channel of the hot Wii™ home video game system. WiiWare paves the way for smaller, more creative games to make their way to the public at lower prices, without any inventory risk to developers. The first WiiWare content will launch in early 2008.

“Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace to see if we can find the next smash hit,” says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. “WiiWare brings new levels of creativity and value to the ever-growing population of Wii owners.”

The possibilities for WiiWare are limited only by the imaginations of developers. WiiWare provides game creators a simple method by which they can get their games to the public. This approach, combined with the remarkable motion controls of the Wii Remote™ and Nunchuk™, will give birth to fresh takes on established genres, as well as original ideas that currently exist only in developers’ minds. The reduced barriers to development provide developers the freedom to create and an inexpensive, clearly defined path to reach consumers who will ultimately determine which game will become the Next Big Thing.

WiiWare will be posted on the Wii Shop Channel. As with current Wii Shop Channel offerings, users will redeem Wii Points™ to download content. It will support a variety of pricing options. Details about that and upcoming projects will be announced at a later date. For more information about Wii, visit Wii.com.

Met dank aan Stefaan Kusters voor het melden van dit nieuws!