WiiWare paves the way for homemade Wii games

In a move that's sure to delight the literally millions of Wii owners out there, Nintendo has announced that it will be offering a development platform which will allow almost anyone to create games that can be downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel. Like Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express before it, the so called WiiWare service gives at-home developers the tools to create content playable with those magical controllers, meaning that many of the strange and disturbing concept titles we've seen may actually come to fruition starting next year. Since no one wants to sit around coding for free (except for, you know, the entire open source community), Nintendo will allow devs to sell their wares to the public -- "reducing barriers to entry," as the economists say, while giving gamers a potentially endless source of cheap and innovative content. Just remember, Nintendo, when you gift the masses with the power to create, you're definitely not gonna like all of their creations.

[Via Joystiq]

[Nando @ Jun 27th 2007 11:00AM]

Oh hO! This is gonna be fun!!

[zerosoft @ Jun 27th 2007 11:11AM]

I must admit that was very unexpected

[Grey Acumen @ Jun 27th 2007 11:13AM]

I'm definitely interested.

[ravuya @ Jun 27th 2007 11:22AM]

No part of that press release implies it's a development kit for at-home users. What it seems to be is something akin to the Xbox Live Arcade development program, which certainly isn't as liberal as the XNA Creators' Club.

I'd love a hobbyist kit, but this doesn't seem to be one.

[Rick @ Jun 27th 2007 11:35AM]

I know exactly where this is going to go and you're going to need the Wii belt for it.

[Zeus the God @ Jun 27th 2007 11:47AM]

Dude, that is fucking awesome. I may have to buy a Wii.

[Jimmy @ Jun 27th 2007 11:57AM]

I am glad that I read the press release. The information on Engadget, while not wrong, is certainly a little misleading. There is no suggestion of this being designed for home brew. The press release repeatedly discuss small developers but there's no mention of hobbyists or home development.

This could be open to many interpretations but there is nothing in the press release describing anything similar to XNA. They are obviously courting the casual games market and/or encouraging development from small indie firms. Unless the Big N is leaving something out of the PR then I will assume that this is still very much focussed on professional development and not on end-users.

[Rainier @ Jun 27th 2007 12:06PM]

Wii...would like to code.

[Parker @ Jun 27th 2007 12:11PM]

Certainly unexpected. I can't wait to see what people will come up with. I wonder if I would be able to offer my creations as free downloads, or if everything will be offered on a for-pay basis.

[ravuya @ Jun 27th 2007 1:26PM]

According to Fils-Aime, you need to already have a Wii devkit, which means this is for independent developers, not homebrew developers:
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/06/27/reggie-on-his-big-plans-for-a-little-nintendo-wiiware.aspx

Any plans for a retraction?

[JC @ Jun 27th 2007 1:53PM]

How long before someone makes Wii Slapfight?

[dpk @ Jun 27th 2007 7:37PM]

Now the Wii just needs to be available in stores and they'll be set.

[Randavance @ Jun 28th 2007 12:06AM]

Holy shit! This was really unexpected, especially from a company like Nintendo. It's almost as if they actually listened to our pleas!

This is going to help sooooooo much for the Wiili (Linux on Wii) project. I can't wait to be running a complete desktop on the Wii (though admittedly, I find the developers of Wiili are a little misguided at times).

This really is amazing, it's an open source developing Nintendo fanboys wet dream come true.

[Randomness @ Jun 28th 2007 12:56AM]

"Homemade Wii games" != Made in a development studio by a professional game development company that already must have a Wii Development kit. Nintendo still decides what can make it on the Wii.

This is NOT "at home developers" or "almost anyone". What's with these completely inaccurate stories engadget!?

[TorontoGuy @ Apr 15th 2008 1:32PM]

Before people completely soil themselves over this news, remember, the Wii has NO hard drive...and has only about 512Mb of RAM. Where are you going to keep all of these marvellous 'indie' games? On SD Cards? Where they are not playable until MOVED back to Wii memory (not a fast process) and then moved back to the SD warehouse each and everytime the game is played.One of these games may take up 90% of your available memory so...say bye bye to instant access to VC games or even installing new games (like Brawl which has its own memory demands)

[Jim @ Jun 24th 2008 7:31AM]

Wii is in fact VERY restrictive on who they give this to. Must have previous game development experience. So, not even just a small development shop is acceptable. VERY MISLEADING

[Alex @ Aug 27th 2008 7:25PM]

I don't understand why the Wii itself is even an issue here.
The PC drivers for WiiMotes seem to work very well, at least for me. It would be far easier to just develop PC games using the wii-mote. Heck, you could just make little flash games and they'd be tons of fun.