Wii Unwraps Gifting

Just in time for the holidays, Nintendo has unveiled its "gifting" feature for the Wii, letting users buy and send classic games to other users via the Wii Shop Channel.

Just in time for the holidays, Nintendo has unveiled a new gifting feature for its Wii Shop Channel. Beginning this week, owners of Nintendo’s Wii video game console will be able to purchase classic games using the Wii Shop Channel, and send them to other Wii owners with whom they’ve already traded Friend Codes. And if the intended recipient already has the game you’re trying to give them, no worries: buyers will receive a message and be returned to the catalog with their wallets intact.

Wii console owners can purchase classic games originally designed for older game systems using Wii Points, an online payment system. In the United States, a Wii Point is equal to $0.01, so a game costing 50o Wii Points is priced at $5, and a game priced at 1,000 Wii Points costs the equivalent of $10.

Nintendo has been rolling out new games for the Wii Shop Channel every Monday. This week’s additions are Pokémon Snap (1,000 Wii Points), originally developed for the Nintendo 64, along with the NES title Ghosts’n Goblins (500 Wii Points) and the NEOGEO game Baseball Stars 2 (900 Wii Points).