WiiWare has demo's

[Me]

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Dr. Mario WiiWare includes demo to share with friends

It seems somewhat embarrassing in this, Space Year 2008, to be raving about the appearance of a downloadable game demo on a home console, but in the case of Nintendo (who haven’t exactly embraced the concept as of yet) it is a significant step. It isn’t even a disc-based release or available to everyone for free, but those who purchase Dr. Mario for WiiWare have the chance to send their friends an invitation to bag a preview of the game for themselves.

Japanese gamers willing to fork out 1000 Wii Points for Dr. Mario: Bacteria Extermination from the WiiWare download service, are also given the chance to send a message to anyone in their Wii friends list, with a link to install and access a free demo of the virus-blasting puzzler. Said trial allows players to compete in classic Dr. Mario matches over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection only, with no way of experiencing the multiplayer or single-player modes offline.

Yes, it’s a pitiful advancement in terms of what’s available on the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3, but it does at least show that Nintendo is slowly beginning to open its eyes to the idea of providing free game demos - and indeed, that WiiWare is able to support them. Unfortunately it isn’t possible for Japanese gamers to gift the Dr. Mario demo to their friends in other regions, not unless they’ve also got a Japanese Wii of course.

We’ll bring you more on this story as we get it, most likely covering whether the North American version of the game also provides the demo, when WiiWare launches in the territory on May 12.