Nintendo Celebrates One-Year WiiWare Anniversary

Nintendo's WiiWare downloadable games service celebrates the one-year anniversary of its North American launch today, and the company says the library is up to 81 titles from over 40 different studios. Nintendo continues to tout WiiWare as a platform whose relatively low barrier to entry supports smaller companies in serving their games to console users. "In fact, more than half the games in the WiiWare library were created and self-published by small independent studios, many with five or fewer employees," says Nintendo in a statement. Popular WiiWare titles Nintendo highlights include 2D Boy's World of Goo, Tetris Online's Tetris Party, and Aksys' Bit.Trip Beat, along with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King and Mega Man 9, from major publishers Square Enix and Capcom. In the year to come, consumers can expect Nicalis' adaptation of Pixel's Cave Story, Team Meat's indie Super Meat Boy, Bit.Trip Beat follow-up Bit.Trip Core,and Square Enix's sequel to seminal RPG Final Fantasy IV. "The first anniversary of our WiiWare service is a milestone that marks how far the service has come and how much great content is currently available,", says Nintendo of America sales and marketing EVP Cammie Dunaway. "We encourage everyone to get their Wii consoles connected to the Internet so they have access to the full range of WiiWare games."