DSiWare Turns One, No One Cares

Nintendo today celebrates a glorious North American year of DSiWare, a year punctuated by the compelling release of Pictobits, Mighty Flip Champs and… that’s about it.

The service launched alongside the DSi, standing to become an easily accessible marketplace of digital content much like the systems employed on the Wii et al. While it succeeds in its ease of themed clock or calculator purchase, it fails spectacularly in offering games or software worth purchasing. Coupled with Nintendo’s continued face-palm inducing stance on digital rights management between consoles, keeping bought content locked to a single handset, DSiWare hasn’t really taken off with the chutzpah of its relentlessly enthusiastic press releases or TV advertisements.

While a great idea in theory, until developers treat the store front with a modicum of respect, it seems dreadfully priced minigames lifted direct from ancient editions of Warioware are almost the best DSi / XL owners can hope for. Perhaps by the platform’s second birthday we’ll be able to lavish praise upon a killer app that does a little more than waking you up in the morning with samples from Wild World.