Oh, you lucky gamers from the States! Seems that Nintendo has just launched WiiWare, the games download channel we were waiting for, but at the moment it's only available in the US. This early launch surely surprises us, since WiiWare was scheduled for a 2008 release, so there might be some good news coming for the European Wii owners as well. Too bad that there's not much content available at the moment - only a video preview of Metroid Prime 3.

I'm guessing that a couple of Mario games will surely please the public, spiced up by some classic Mega Man titles and maybe a Pokemon demo. So, it seems that yet another download channel will make us spend points and cash in order to gain access to the latest demos, trailers and even full games. That is surely a reason for the Wii owners to get going and start earning points, if they want to play the latest Mario or Pokemon demo.

I'm sure that we'll soon see comparisons and whole articles about the duel of the major games download channels: Xbox Live, Playstation Store and WiiWare. The last one isn't part of the competition yet, as it doesn't feature as much content as the other, but it may prove to be a worthy opponent in the long run, due to its intuitive interface. I'm also curious to see if the Wii's channel can put up with the numerous gamers "hunting" for the latest demo and generating a serious lag.

How many millions of downloads does it take to bring down WiiWare? If Assassin's Creed demo was available on Nintendo's channel, the previous question would become a really important issue. At the moment Xbox Live offers goodies like the BioShock demo, while Playstation Store allows you to play Heavenly Sword, a 5-minutes long demo. WiiWare must deliver...