Consoles these days depend on a lot of features in order to stand out and be bought by an average gamer. A big decisive factor is the online service, especially the one through which games can be purchased, downloaded and then played by the user without him leaving his own home.

While the Xbox 360 has its Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation 3 has the PlayStation Network, Nintendo's extremely popular Wii has its WiiWare service, through which games are distributed to end users around the world.

The service is now a year old and, with 81 games in its library, it ensures that all Wii gamers can have something with which to fill their time between fully fledged games. With more than 40 development studios across the globe bringing their titles to the WiiWare service, it definitely seems that it is a very popular one, boasting such titles like World of Goo, Sontr Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People or Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life.

“The first anniversary of our WiiWare service is a milestone that marks how far the service has come and how much great content is currently available,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “We encourage everyone to get their Wii consoles connected to the Internet so they have access to the full range of WiiWare games.”

In the same press release, Nintendo saw fit to announce some of the most expected titles that will arrive on the WiiWare service in the following months, including games such as Cave Story, Icarian Kindred Spirits, Super Meat Boy, Bit.trtip Core or the extremely anticipated Final Fantasy IV: The After years, which is a sequel to the famous Square Enix title FF IV.

Overall, WiiWare is a great service and hopefully it will continue to feature lots and lots of high-quality titles for Wii gamers.