PLATTCHEN - Twist 'n 'Paint Interview

For those that don't know, PLATTCHEN - Twist 'n 'Paint is the first WiiWare title that we found out about. Here are some tidbits of an interview about it...

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your game, PLÄTTCHEN, and how does it incorporate the Wii Remote?

A: PLÄTTCHEN - twist 'n' paint is an intelligent puzzle shooter with 3D gameplay elements and the freedom to paint and to repaint any plättchen, the puzzle tiles in the game, to any color of the rainbow. Players select the color just by twisting the wiimote and with it the color wheel on screen. Plättchen of a similar color will react with each other but will not, as in other games, disappear instantly. A big thing in the game is the action-centric shooting part, which we will reveal at a later date. We often try to compare PLÄTTCHEN twist 'n' paint with classics like Tetris, Picross, Point Blank or Puzzle Bobble, but the game is so different that it just isn't comparable with any of them. Stay tuned for a completely new experience unlike anything before. Along with a unique 12-player simultaneous multiplayer mode, a huge number of other surprises await you.

Q: Nintendo say WiiWare will be available "Early 08", though George Harrison has stated that the service could launch as early as this year depending on what games are ready. Do you have a more specific date, and will PLÄTTCHEN be available on its launch?

A: Since most developers have been informed about the service only recently, we expect it to launch sometime in February or March of 2008. We will do our best to enrich the lineup with the availibility of PLÄTTCHEN - twist 'n' paint from the beginning.

Full Interview Here
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New WiiWare News

A Nikkei Business article reveals a few new tidbits about WiiWare:

- First titles to focus on puzzle, educational genres

- Nintendo will help to publish titles for small developers

- Pricing is expected to be under $10, but nothing official has been stated yet

- Future WiiWare titles will encompass various genres, as well as bigger projects

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My Metroid Prime 3 Preview Channel Impressions

I just downloaded the Metroid Prime 3 Preview Channel from the WiiWare section of the Wii Shop Channel and it was interesting. The two videos were pretty cool and I like how they made a channel to promote a game. It's a great idea. This Monday, we'll be getting 2 more videos, so I look forward to that, as well as possible future updates to that channel.

PLATTCHEN Controls and Screenshot

For those that don't know, PLATTCHEN is the first announced Wii Ware title. Here is the control scheme and a screenshot for PLATTCHEN:




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Hudson brings Playfirst titles to WiiWare

Hudson has signed a deal with Playfirst, who is the publisher of many games for the Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network, to bring some of their games to the WiiWare section of the Wii Shop Channel.

“PlayFirst is a leader in the casual games space and shares Hudson’s goal of delivering top quality entertainment to a broad audience of players. Top casual games such as Diner Dash that have a wide appeal are driving a new era in console gaming. PlayFirst’s portfolio combines the best in casual games with lovable characters, immersive storylines and incredibly fun gameplay – making them well suited for the fast-growing and increasingly mass market audience of digital download service users.” - Hudson Entertainment president and CEO John Greiner

Just so you guys know, Go Nintendo is saying that WiiWare is a new channel, but they are wrong. According to everything Nintendo has said so far, WiiWare is not a new channel, but a part of the Wii Shop Channel. In fact, if you go to the Wii Shop Channel right now, you'll see a section called Wii Ware and it has 2 channels currently. I don't know why they are mis-reporting this, and doing so often. I'll have to try and contact them and let them know.

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Miyamoto talks WiiWare and Wii Music

Wired interviewed Miyamoto and here's a portion of it:

WN: Getting off this subject, can you tell me what’s going on with Wii Ware? It’s been announced, but we haven’t heard any details.

SM: Wii Ware is something that we’ve had planned all along for the system, so even though we’ve just announced it it’s not something that’s very new for me. But, our group isn’t specifically focused on developing any Wii Ware. But we have in our internal development teams who are constantly doing different experiments and will have different ideas about games. And oftentimes a lot of those experiments can’t be fully fleshed out into, say, a Mario game or something like that. But those individuals will often want to find a way to take those ideas to market. So it’s possible that we might be able to take advantages of some of those resources and turn them into small and compact Wii Ware games.

But really, I think the advantge of WIi Ware is that it allows a lot more freedom — they can take something that’s a much smaller concept or idea and turn it into a game that they can present to the public. So I think it adds another layer of freedom for the developer.

WN: Tell me more about Wii Music. I thought maybe that game would be a shoo-in to get shown at E3.

SM: We had a few too many titles to show off this year at E3, so we decided to hold that one back. I think it will be another big step forward in terms of Touch Generations style games for Wii, so you’ll just have to wait until we can talk about it.

WN: Is that still on for this year in Japan?

SM: I kind of focus on games in order, one by one. I’m focused on these right now. So I’m thinking Wii Music might be good for next year sometime. Mario Kart, as well.

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First WiiWare Title Revealed?

Wii-UK received a strange press release about a game that seems to be for WiiWare. Here's the press release:


The Viennese company Bplus, which celebrates its fourth birthday today on 07-07-07, is proud to announce to be, as Nintendo official developer, among the first that offer original game titles for the new Wii download service.

The start is made with the innovative puzzle shooter game “PLATTCHEN - twist ‘n’ paint” which has been designed specifically for Wii and its innovative new controller. Supported by the test team of the Austria-exclusive GameClub, which only consists of Nintendo enthusiasts, Bplus creates an easily accessible and exciting game experience that will easily attract hardcore Nintendo fans as well as relatively unexperienced players.

See the website for Plattchen here

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Reggie Talks Manhunt 2 and WiiWare

N’Gai Croal did an interview with Reggie Fils-Aime and here are parts of it:

“Wii welcomes games rated E, T and M. We haven’t approved AO-rated games. I doubt we ever will. What Rockstar has right now is a game rated outside our spectrum, outside any manufacturer’s spectrum.”

(concerning Wiimote motions adding to the Adult Only rating in the Wii version) “That’s an issue for the ESRB and Rockstar to work through. And as I understand the ESRB guidelines, the Wii controls should not be an issue.”

When talking about WiiWare, he talked of the controls:

"Again, there's no filtering. We have not put any parameters on the control device or how the consumer will play the games. They can be remote-only; remote and nunchuk; classic controller; Gamecube controller. All of that is allowed."

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Nintendo Talks WiiWare, No HardDrive Coming

CVG did an interview with a Nintendo UK Rep and here is a part of it:

CVG: There are concerns regarding Wii’s relatively small internal memory being filled by all this content (as well as VC games). Is this a concern for Nintendo?

Nintendo: Games can be saved on the internal memory or on SD cards - Wii Software games will come in a variety of sizes, but Nintendo encourages smaller, compact games for the service.

CVG: Will the games be playable from SD card, or will they need to exist on the internal memory, like VC games?

Nintendo: WiiWare is stored in and started up from the Wii internal flash memory so they would need to be transferred from SD like VC games.

However like VC games you can delete a Wii Software game to make room for other content, then re-download it at no cost.

CVG: Is Nintendo considering releasing a hard drive to bolster the Wii’s memory for all this new content?

Nintendo: No

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WiiWare Press Release from Nintendo

NINTENDO'S WIIWARE PAVES THE WAY FOR FRESH GAMES, COOL CONSUMER EXPERIENCES

Nintendo Sets a New Paradigm: One Game Can Still Make a Difference

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.

The worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii™, Nintendo DS™, Game Boy® Advance and Nintendo GameCube™ systems. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold nearly 2.4 billion video games and more than 409 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario™, Donkey Kong®, Metroid®, Zelda™ and Pokémon®. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, visit the company's Web site at www.Nintendo.com.

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WiiWare, Original Downloadable Content, Announced!

Later today, Nintendo will make an official announcement on what I am about to tell you with full details, but for now, I will tell you what we know. Currently, we have Virtual Console games sold in the Wii Shop Channel. Well, we now know of information on downloadable original games, now called WiiWare. These games, WiiWare, will be sold in the Wii Shop Channel (I'm guessing in the WiiWare section since the names match) and will begin to appear next year from Nintendo and third-parties.

One thing to note though is that Nintendo is looking for games from Third-Party companies and from Indie Developers. Nintendo would set the price (which would be in Wii Points) and it's up to the developer and publisher to get a rating for the game. Nintendo will only be checking things like bugs and compatibility. Look for more information on WiiWare later today! Oh, and one thing you should note is that I got the story from Go Nintendo, but they seem to think that there will be a new channel for this stuff, which isn't true. Therefore, I'm sourcing the people that ran the original story, Level Up.

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