In an act of unprecedented generosity, Nintendo of America has reinstated a ton of WiiWare demos in the Wii Shop Channel, which now bulges with nearly 50 demos of some of WiiWare's brightest and best games.
Europe, you have just the two demos still: MotoHeroz and Gnomz.
Here's the full list for North American Wii owners:
3D Pixel Racing
A Monsteca Corral: Monsters vs. Robots
And Yet It Moves
Art of Balance
BIT.TRIP BEAT
BIT.TRIP CORE
BIT.TRIP FATE
BIT.TRIP FLUX
BIT.TRIP RUNNER
BIT.TRIP VOID
Cave Story
chick chick BOOM
Chronos Twins DX
Dart Rage
Dive: The Medes Islands Secret
FAST — Racing League
Fast Draw Showdown
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord
Fish 'em All
Fluidity
Frobot
Furry Legends
Gnomz (also available in Europe)
Gods vs. Humans
Horizon Riders
Jam City Rollergirls
Jett Rocket
Kyotokei
LiT
Lead the Meerkats
Learning with the PooYoos — Episode 1
Learning with the PooYoos — Episode 2
Learning with the PooYoos — Episode 3
Liight
lilt line
Max and the Magic Marker
Mix Superstar
MotoHeroz (also available in Europe)
NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits
Paint Splash
Pokémon Rumble
Pong Toss Pro — Frat Party Games
Racers' Island: Crazy Racers
Rage of the Gladiator
Robox
Soccer Bashi
ThruSpace
Urbanix
World of Goo
Zombie Panic in Wonderland
All 50 demos right there. Which will you get?
Comments 47
In australia we only have 2 demos atm :/
Are the demos which were only previously available in Europe (e.g. Rage of the Gladiator) now available in North America?
@BulbasaurusRex The list above is the complete list of demos available in the North American Wii Shop Channel, as typed up by my own fair hand.
Some of the games are not even out in Europe. For example Frobot and Liight.
Gah, I was totally excited until I saw 'Nintendo of America'
First the 150 coins range now this, you guys really are being spoiled.
I have no doubt if this many demos had been left online from when they first released, WiiWare would have done much better.
@JimLad: I will gladly trade you all these demos for The Last Story.
That's great news, it made little sense in withdrawing the Demo's in the first place. A good positive move that will hopefully boost some WiiWare sales!
@WolfRamHeart Deal
edit: Actually how about Excitebots for Last Story? That's a fair trade. I'd even throw in Pandora's Tower.
So much Bit trip... I am horrible at beats, I cannot even finish my bit trip demo.
@jimlad you do realise that we have a better deal on the european club shop. there is an option to trade star points for shop points that can be used to buy whatever you want from either the wii, dsi, or 3DS eshop.
although the conversion rate is pretty lousy, it`s still better than using club shop coins on whatever nintendo decide to make available on the site.
also. i`m glad nintendo are doing something to promote sales of the wiiware games, it would be nice if they did the same with the VC, but that`ll never happen.
MotoHeroz is the only one I'm interested in. I've tried most of the rest already.
@my_point_is Pretty lousy is an understatement, to buy a NES game you need to convert 2000 stars, that's about 8 Wii games.
Personally I'd rather choose from a small list and actually get something decent every 3 games or so.
Once again, nice but why didn't they just do this from the start?
Why have they suddenly realized the benefits of actually having frikin demos only now?
It puzzles me some of the decisions Nintendo makes.
Do the same NoE, there has been no need to hide those demos.
@my_point_is
It's not a better deal, the exchange rate is so ridiculously terrible it's never worth doing. I'd much rather have a small list to choose from and get one every 3-4 games I register than taking 16 full retail games to get one free game of my choice.
Makes sense to hope many people that got a Wii during the holidays will download some demos and buy some WiiWare i guess.
Any idea on how long they will all be on there?
So do they usually put up demos for like a week and then take them back down? And now they've put them all back up? Is that the situation?
Heres what happened...
for years people being telling Nintendo they need demos, Nintendo believe that if people have demos they wont buy full game.
Nintendo does "demo trials" to see how they work but dont follow up on them... then Capcom releases Monster Hunter Demo on the 3DS...
Monster Hunter sells loads of copies when it hits the shelves.
Nintendo realise that they may have been wrong for all these years and decide to finally start releasing demos properly.
It's Monster Hunter.. you were going to see those sales regardless if it had a demo or not.
50 in America, 2 in Europe.
WTF!
Why the hell can't Nintendo just have normal demos on their platform like every other service.
Um... something Nintendo should've done years ago, no?
Generosity? Why the heck did they take them down in the first place? I got the Bit.Trip Runner demo over the summer and it convinced me to buy the full version. I needed moar! But yeah, if they make the demos limited enough then people won't just sit around playing the demo instead of eventually buying the actual game, if that's what they're worried about.
@20 That's interesting. Truly a misconception on Nintendo's part. I'm MUCH more likely to buy a game if I have a demo to try out first. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
I'm glad that they're finally doing this, but it may be too little too late. As for myself, I've already downloaded almost all of these. Except Pokemon Rumble, which I guess I'll try.
It wouldn't hurt if Nintendo had a sale on WiiWare one of these days. When you consider how dirt cheap quality games are on Steam during their many sales....
So, it's been a couple of hours, has Nintendo removed them yet
This actually works for me. I had many of these at one point but my SD card started to hang so I put in a new SD card and went to re-download some but obviously couldn't find them. I'm only interested in a few but will be nice to have them back so my kids stop pestering me.
Think this has anything to do with:
1. Icon's overly negative comments (which I'm sure are expressed often behind the scenes thanks to the NDAs publishers signed)?
2. Getting ready for the WiiU which will hopefully be comparable to the PS3/Xbox360?
Oh, and I see Nintendo's point - demo's will kill sales for horrible games, so better not to have them; but they certainly garner sales for good games as well. I don't know how the math works out though - demo for a bad game kills 60% of sales but demo for a good game garners 1000% more sales? Guess it depends if N sees more of it's Wiiware games as good or bad, so hurt or hindered by demos. From the demo list only Pong Toss jumps out at me as shovelware, a lot of them are actually decent to good games. No fireplaces or card making crayola.
Excellent. I shall go start downloading some right away. Maybe all, if I have enough free space.
When are they gonna put back the games they took down? I wanted to buy Shootanto :/
I know I'm gonna sound like a pessimist, but I have a feeling that this is being done b/c it's the last (partial) year of the Wii, not even a full year. On the other hand, & more bright side, @Raptor78 #20 could/may be correct. Time to prep one of my sd cards. I really have been wanting to try the Bit.Trip series. All I've tried was I think Core, & I own, & have laughably never beaten Beat. Actually, I've never gotten past lvl2. Still fun, though.
Will we ever get anything?
I wouldn't be surprised if these demos came out in Europe soon. If it takes more than a month I could understand the complaining.
This is the way it SHOULD have been from the get go... for ALL regions...
Gonna grab the Zombie Panic one soon.
I downloaded a lot of demos but they aren't gone from my Wii Channel!
^After you d/l anything from the Shop, it still appears in the Shop, just w/ the word downloaded next to it. You can only gift, when you already have it d/led, unless to my understanding it's an update.
Hey, UK/EU guys! We get 50 demos, you get 3D Classics Kid Icarus. Fair trade.
I'm only joking. I hope you guys get some awesome stuff soon!
MotoHeroz and Jett Rocket for me!
Now this is a good idea, if only Europe can get it as well. Still, It's no excuse for no VC/ Wiiware releases.
I downloaded all of them when they came out and kept them thinking they could get a collectible status if they were never re-released, I even gifted Dr. Mario to a friend so he could send me back the demo for this game. But this re-release is good for both Nintendo and us.
Well it's about damn time Nintendo did this!!
Other than the reviews for most WiiWare games, how else would people know about a game let alone try it out on a demo to see whether or not people will buy it??? By the way, if I like the demo of a certain game, I WILL buy the full game.
Shouldnt have been for a limit of time anyways. I mean people buy a new system every week and im sure new or old people want to have an option to try the older demos not cause they missed out by default of not having the system at the time of the demos release...
Where's the Wii's equivalent of the 3DS' "Down Later" option when you need it?
It was a silly idea to take back the demos. The demos are esencial to check the product and make an interest to download the games. A time limit was a fool idea but now they are back. Without demos i had never downloaded chick chick boom, Monsteca and And yet it moves.
Awesome news. Something like Kyotokei I wanted to try but not pay full price for. Same with Motoheroz. Not to mention I had no idea some of these games even existed.
Anyone know why they were taken down in the first place?
They never should have been removed in the first place
I really don't get Nintendo! Wiiware was a failure sales-wise and one of the reasons was their demo-policy. It took ages before they arrived, and they where only available temporarily. Look at Microsoft/Sony: All their downloadable games (old and new titles) have demo's and they are ALWAYS available!
And now at the end of the Wii's lifespan they think to save Wiiware by re-releasing all previous demo's at once? Who are they fooling?!
I've downloaded about 10 off that list, and I'd love to get the rest, except I ran out of room already. I'll have to see about picking up and SD card or two so that I can download the rest. Hopefully there's no time limit on these, unlike the last batch...
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