Nintendo Live Arcade - a bit late?

[JKKDARK]

via Wii-UK

According to an interview with a publisher, Nintendo are soon to launch a downloadable games channel, in a similar vein to the Xbox Live Arcade.

Whilst being able to download 'new' software for Wii would be excellent, I can't help but think that it might be a tiny bit late. Microsoft already dominate the online console scene completely, and Nintendo have little chance of catching up.

Of course, catching up might not be the point. Perhaps Nintendo just want to let us access more games. Either way, it's good news.

Here's the offending interview:

'"I wouldn't say Virtual Console, because they're not actually calling it the Virtual Console, but in the next few months there will be various announcements I'm sure made by Nintendo that will offer users a system that will be similar to that of what Microsoft is offering at present, which is the ability to download content, which you guys are able to do, but they've got to set up their various systems. Microsoft are years ahead of the other two major players in that regard. It really depends on when Nintendo are rolling out their strategy, which I expect will be within the next two months."'

This certainly isn't the first we've heard of this - an interview with Capcom recently also suggested the same thing. Spooky, eh.

[ICE]

AWESOME. nice find jkk

[Mr_Squirt]

Nah, it's never too late!

[bmemike]

The only "issue" I have with this is the lack of space on the Wii for downloadable content.

Luckily, the VC games are all rather tiny. But if they start giving us any "real" games that will have similar content, play time and quality to the current disk-based games, then I'd expect them to be considerably larger than the VC titles.

Arcade and puzzle games will be relatively small, but anything more complex will certainly require a fair amount of space.

We'll see if this is going to be handled elegantly or not.

[werpu]

The only "issue" I have with this is the lack of space on the Wii for downloadable content.

Luckily, the VC games are all rather tiny. But if they start giving us any "real" games that will have similar content, play time and quality to the current disk-based games, then I'd expect them to be considerably larger than the VC titles.

Arcade and puzzle games will be relatively small, but anything more complex will certainly require a fair amount of space.

We'll see if this is going to be handled elegantly or not.

There is only one way, they have to start to sell external drives or at least enable the SD functionality to that level that you can start programs from it.

As for the external drives, the wii has usb connectors, so it is very likely, that this will happen, and probably the bigger games are marked as needs external drive.

[sappo]

Nintendo discussed about External Drives some months ago.

Nintendo branded external HD, here I come!

XBox Live Arcade, Wii will own you

[bmemike]

Nintendo discussed about External Drives some months ago.

Care to throw down a link that show's Nintendo's plans for external HDDs? I've only seen rumor and speculation at best.

[Basil Zero]

hmmm Nintendo Planning on External Harddrives, or is there a expansion port?

[hp1]

Sorry, I'm being a bit dim this morning. Will the only way this will be different from the current VC be that the games are 'new' ie not old games? Will they be playable online?

[bmemike]

hmmm Nintendo Planning on External Harddrives, or is there a expansion port?

So far I see no evidence that they're "planning" anything of the sort. As for expansion ports... absolutely. They're the USB ports on the back of the Wii.

Sorry, I'm being a bit dim this morning. Will the only way this will be different from the current VC be that the games are 'new' ie not old games? Will they be playable online?

I believe that's the basic difference - these are new games with new content. The VC is a channel specifically designed to deliver "classic games" that Nintendo licenses to us.

It stands to reason that some of these new titles may incorporate online play, but at this time, there's no mention of it at all.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see something along the lines of MS Games where people play poker and other sorts of things online... but who knows what will actually get implemented.