"Australians did not have to wait long after their overseas cousins for Nintendo's WiiWare service, with the first downloadable games available on the Wii Shop Channel from today.

Whereas Nintendo's Virtual Console service allows consumers to download classic games from systems like the SNES, N64 and Megadrive, WiiWare offers brand new titles and is an opportunity for video game developers to create innovative new games."

After first launching in Japan, and two weeks ago reaching North American shores, WiiWare, Nintendo's new development platform now makes its way to European shores, bring it six games available at launch, with all of the games drawing from Nintendo of Europe's released list of launch window games.

The six titles made available for European WiiWare are the following:

Dr. Mario & Germ Buster, Nintendo, 1-4 Players, 1000 Points

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, Square Eni...

With WiiWare launching in North America last week, Nintendo's weekly Monday Virtual Console updates will now include WiiWare games, hence the change in the title from the usual "NA Wii Virtual Console".

This week's update will see two new WiiWare games, along with one Virtual Console game.

The first WiiWare game is Critter Round-up, developed by Epicenter Studios and Konami. The game features more than 50 levels as players try to build fences and corral the animals amidst barnyard chao...

"Nintendo has announced the European WiiWare launch line-up, which is headlined by LostWinds from Frontier and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King by Square Enix.

Nintendo has been in touch to say "not all eight titles will be immediately available from the May 20th launch date". The wording in the press release was, "From 20th May onwards a whole host of brand new creative games from developers across Europe and the rest of the globe become available, including..." followed..."