Super Meat Boy Canned on WiiWare, Retail Release Unlikely

The recently released multiplatform title will no longer be making its way to the platform it was first announced for.

Yesterday, it was announced by Team Meat that they will be cancelling the WiiWare release of Super Meat Boy. By the end of development of the game, they were already concerned that the title wouldn't be able to be compressed down to the strict 40MB size restriction of the system.

After cutting out as much as possible, the team came close to meeting the mark, but weren't happy with the resulting product. Instead of completely giving up hope, the team approached Nintendo pushing for a higher cap on WiiWare to accommodate the product, but while not adversarial, the company would not budge on the size restriction of the platform.

Currently, Team Meat is pursuing a retail release of the title, but after talking with three top publishers, the response has been less than stellar. "There's no money in third-party retail," Edmund McMillen of Team Meat was told, in reference to publishing on Wii. Regardless of the negative response, the team is still asking around in hopes to secure a publisher for the game.

According to McMillen, "[they] will do a game on a Nintendo platform," but what that is remains to be seen.

Joaquim Mira Media Manager

12/24/2010 at 10:22 AM

Booooo... not that I care because I wasn't that interested in this game at all. Maybe they will have enough space on the 3DS.

Jason Ross Senior Editor

12/25/2010 at 12:36 AM

I still expect to see a retail release. Once Team Meat completely disconfirms Wii potential, though, I'll be buying the PC version.

Nick DiMola Director

12/25/2010 at 04:23 AM

Yeah, this is sad news for Wii-only owners, and Wii/PS3 owners. It's such a great game, I really hope it becomes available via retail. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the smaller publishers picked it up.

While unlikely, someone like Atlus would be a great choice. Perhaps even Aksys might be interested, considering they have done the publishing for the Bit.Trip games.I can't believe that this one won't be an instant moneymaker.

I'm guessing Team Meat is throwing out this sob story to reach all of the publishers simultaneously via the game media. Keep an eye out in the next few weeks, because I wouldn't be surprised if they have a publishing agreement all worked out.

Nate Hascup Staff Alumnus

12/25/2010 at 04:11 PM

Well, the sob story worked for High Voltage and Conduit. You just need someone big in the media to champion the game.

Very sad Nintendo is so narrow minded on the issue.

Matt McLennan Staff Alumnus

12/25/2010 at 05:46 PM

SO... who is the villain everyone?

;)

12/25/2010 at 06:03 PM

Assumptions are the villain. Right?

12/25/2010 at 06:05 PM

Hmm, the villain... I'd say nobody, really. Team Meat made the best game they could, and Nintendo has a set of well known rules and regulations in regard to the WiiWare size limitation. Team Meat chose to overstep those boundaries in order to create a better game, and Nintendo did nothing more than enforce their rule set.

Bottom line is that the game is available elsewhere, and mostly anyone will be able to at least play it on their PC. Like I said before, I think it'll release on retail anyway, so it'll be a winning situation for everyone, though Wii owners will likely have to chalk up some extra cash for it whenever that does wind up happening.

PixlBit