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Indie publisher Nicalis has said that WiiWare sales are in decline and have reached the stage of being almost non-existent”.
The company had planned to release new side scrolling title La-Mulana on the service but has now cancelled the game as it is "near impossible to sell sufficient units on WiiWare" to guarantee a return.
The game will now never be released outside of Japan.
The WiiWare market has a fraction of the players from 2008,” Nicalis founder Tyrone Rodriguez toldGoNintendo.
The window for release and success of software on the platform ended in 2009 and took a very steep decline. Players have moved onto other digital download platforms.
La-Mulana was originally developed without DLC in mind and, I think being their first console project, that NIGORO got a bit ahead of themselves and spent two years agonizing on getting the DLC sort of working for Japan. Unfortunately, it never passed Nintendo’s submission process in the US or EU with DLC in place.
With the Wii U in the not too distant future and WiiWare sales almost non-existent, I had to make a call today.”
