WiiWare’s Greatest Hits
A celebration of the indie games of Nintendo’s first digital storefront
Indie games are now a vital bedrock of the gaming industry, with small developers lending their talents to all of the major consoles in every genre and price range imaginable. The online shops for the Switch, PS4, and Xbox One all provide a cheaper outlet for playing to gamers of every financial class or category; often times the quality of these releases are higher than the AAA ones for the price that is asked.
This wasn’t always the case though. A couple of console generations back, digital storefronts were in their infancies, and the coverage of these small releases was much more minuscule than it is in the current generation.
The late 2000s presented the first innovations in indie development in the console world, with the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 all giving platforms to these games (with my favorite being Nintendo’s shop: WiiWare). While the Wii’s unique motion controls and simplistic design allowed for a lot of shovelware to enter the gaming stratosphere, it also gave independent teams a platform to display their creativity in a way that was uncommon before.
