So, you’ve done it. You’ve managed to track down and purchase a new Wii U console. You’ve brought it home, set it up, and gotten it running. You’ve sat on your butt twiddling your thumbs for an hour or more to download the Day 1 system update, and, finally, you’re ready to dive into all of the content that enduring that laborious process has awarded you – the Internet Browser, the Miiverse and more. New Wii U owner, we salute you – and we’re here to make your next steps just a little bit easier.
Now that you’re ready to get your games going, the question remains – what games should you get? You probably picked up a couple alongside your system, sure, but we’re not talking tangible titles here. This article is all about the all-new Wii U eShop, and the download-only games that are now only available to own for early adopters who’ve jumped through all the right hoops and have access to the storefront.
We’ll be reviewing all five of the new download-only launch titles right here, as well as offering up some analysis for the new eShop experience overall. And please note the “In Progress” status of this article, too – we’ll be adding more content here through the next couple of days.
Enough introduction! Let’s dive in.
This is the fourth download-vending shop Nintendo has launched, and, so far, it certainly looks like the best one yet. The company’s first attempt – the Wii Shop, which debuted six years ago – has been a cumbersome, clunky, hard-to-navigate example of what not to do in digital shop design ever since it went live. It’s been our source of WiiWare and Wii Virtual Console games, and several of those titles have been worth the hassle of dealing with the dated interface, but it was – and still is – easy to see that it was just a first attempt for a company taking its first steps into digital sales.
The DSi Shop, which debuted in 2009 as part of Nintendo’s revised DSi handheld, was a bit better – stylus control and a touch screen helped make things a bit more manageable. But it was still slow, and still offered little help in tracking down interesting titles. It also held over the “Points” system that the Wii Shop had used, though DSi Points were not the same as Wii Points – another confusing hurdle for potential customers to have to overcome.
The third time was the charm, then, when the redesigned, reorganized Nintendo eShop launched for the 3DS handheld in June of 2011. It still had some issues – like the fact that it wasn’t ready to go when the system itself went on sale the previous March – but it ironed out many more. Points were eliminated in favor of just pricing games with actual dollars and cents. Categories of games – updated on a weekly basis – helped highlight potential new purchases. And downloading was streamlined, especially after a later software update activated the option to “Download Later,” so you weren’t forced to sit and twiddle your thumbs again every time you bought a new game – you could just close the system’s shell, walk away and find your new game waiting for you wrapped up like a present when you returned later on.
The look of the new Wii U eShop.
Now that the Wii U’s version of Nintendo eShop is here, it’s easy to see that Nintendo has keyed in to the best aspects of the 3DS shop’s design – but there are further advancements beyond that, too. Downloads are now even smoother, as the process of bringing those bits and bytes into your system’s hard drive will automatically begin running in the background after you confirm a purchase – you can then go about more shop browsing or return to playing a different game while your new one is digitally delivered. There’s an odd “Install” step you have to go through after a download’s completed that the 3DS has never had to deal with, but then the 3DS eShop has never offered games of this sheer size before.
That’s another new feature unique to Wii U – full retail titles are available to buy in digital form right from Day 1. The 3DS has a few on offer, as Nintendo kicked off that practice on the portable with New Super Mario Bros. 2 back in August, but Wii U’s commitment to offering digital options from Day 1 makes a definitive statement about the direction Nintendo’s now heading.
Finally, eShop cards that work for both handheld and console.
In fact, because of the retail titles’ availability as downloads, I personally made the decision to go all-digital with my own Wii U. If I can swing it, the pack-in Nintendo Land will be the only physical disc I own for this system. We’ll see how that works out in the long run, but I’m hopeful. (And I know I’m going to appreciate the lessened clutter of old game cases around the house.)
Beyond a different visual aesthetic, the rest of the features built in to the Wii U eShop mirror those on the 3DS. You can rate titles from 1 to 5 stars if you’ve played them at least an hour. You can add games to a wish list. You can view streaming videos of upcoming titles (very cool to see on an HDTV now.) Anyone who’s spent any time with the handheld shop will be more than comfortable here.
There are still improvements to be made, of course – in selection, for example. Though the Wii U will allow you to play WiiWare and Wii Virtual Console titles, you can’t buy them in this new eShop yet. You have to back out to the Wii U Menu, put your system into “Wii Mode” and go through the old, clunky Wii Shop interface to get them. That’s odd, annoying, and a bit confusing – since the 3DS inherited all of the DSi Shop’s selection immediately when it launched. Hopefully this issue will be cleared up, and we won’t ever have to see the old Wii Shop Channel again.
Ugh. We still have to deal with this?
Another missing component right now is demo availability. We’d heard, for instance, that a demo of Rayman Legends would debut on Day 1, to try to make up for some of the disappointment about the full game’s delay in 2013. It’s nowhere to be found, though. No demos are live in the Wii U eShop currently, which seems like a missed opportunity here in these first days when early adopters are most open with their wallets and sales could be converted quickly from just a few minutes’ worth of a trial run.
But that’s another area that should hopefully be cleared up soon. And when Nintendo does address the few downfalls of this new eShop and we get to see the fully realized vision of this storefront, it’s certainly going to be an exciting little digital destination to visit.
Ready for some game reviews? Alright, I won’t keep you waiting any more. Turn the page to check out our very first Wii U Download reviews, for Mighty Switch Force: Hyper Drive Edition and Nano Assault Neo.
Source : ign[dot]com
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