Nintendo of America has announced that its new downloadable game service WiiWare will launch across North America on the 12th of May. Nintendo also stamped a release date on the highly anticipated Wii Fit, which will launch across the US on the 19th of May, along with the new Wii Balance Board.

Coincidentally yesterday Nintendo announced that Wii Fit would arrive on European shelves on the 25th of April. While a European date for WiiWare has yet to be announced, Nintendo did reveal that Mario Kart Wii will race across Europe on the 11th of April. Super Smash Bros. Brawl has yet to be dated for Europe whereas it will be brawling across the US on the 9th of March.

Nintendo is set to outline the plans for WiiWare, Wii Fit and Super Smash Bros. Brawl in the coming days at the Game Developers Conference which is currently underway in San Francisco.

Wii Fit and WiiWare

Wii Fit sees players exercising using the weight and motion sensing Wii Balance Board, which the game comes bundled with. Players will also be able to access the Wii Fit Channel which they can use to track their fitness progress. The Wii Balance Board is also expected to be used in future game development, in fact third party publishers are already working on new games and applications that will make use of it. Family Ski by Namco Bandai is an example of such a game, already released in Japan, the title is expected to be launched in the US later in the year. Wii Fit was released in Japan on the 1st of December last year and has sold over 1.4 million copies to date.

WiiWare will offers gamers the chance to download new games from independant and major publishers. The first WiiWare games include Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King as well as Frontier’s LostWinds and a new episodic game series from Telltale. According to Nintendo its “combination of low development barriers and unique game experiences found only on Wii should enable developers to try new ideas with lower risk in a quicker, more creative and affordable way.”

A trio to attract new players

“We are excited to participate in the Game Developers Conference this year to share with developers and consumers alike our upcoming unique services and products,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing.

“We are hopeful that they will appreciate our offerings of WiiWare, Wii Fit and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which represent a trio that will continue to attract new players to the world of video games.”