Categories of games – updated on a weekly basis – helped highlight potential new purchases. Points were eliminated in favor of just pricing games with actual dollars and cents.

It still had some issues – like the fact that it wasn’t ready to go when the system itself went on sale the previous March – but it ironed out many more. The third time was the charm, then, when the redesigned, reorganized Nintendo eShop launched for the 3DS handheld in June of 2011. It also held over the “Points” system that the Wii Shop had used, though DSi Points were not the same as Wii Points – another confusing hurdle for potential customers to have to overcome. But it was still slow, and still offered little help in tracking down interesting titles. The DSi Shop, which debuted in 2009 as part of Nintendo’s revised DSi handheld, was a bit better – stylus control and a touch screen helped make things a bit more manageable. It’s been our source of WiiWare and Wii Virtual Console games, and several of those titles have been worth the hassle of dealing with the dated interface, but it was – and still is – easy to see that it was just a first attempt for a company taking its first steps into digital sales. The company’s first attempt – the Wii Shop, which debuted six years ago – has been a cumbersome, clunky, hard-to-navigate example of what not to do in digital shop design ever since it went live. A Brief History of Nintendo’s eShopsThis is the fourth download-vending shop Nintendo has launched, and, so far, it certainly looks like the best one yet. And please note the “In Progress” status of this article, too – we’ll be adding more content here through the next couple of days. We’ll be reviewing all five of the new download-only launch titles right here, as well as offering up some analysis for the new eShop experience overall. This article is all about the all-new Wii U eShop, and the download-only games that are now only available to own for early adopters who’ve jumped through all the right hoops and have access to the storefront.

Now that you’re ready to get your games going, the question remains – what games should you get? You probably picked up a couple alongside your system, sure, but we’re not talking tangible titles here.

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