Nintendo Shuts Down "Limited Time" WiiWare Demos

Back in November, we learned that Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata wanted to offer demos for WiiWare games in hopes of improving sales on the service, an experiment that soon came to pass. As of the end of January, though, that experiment is done.

All available WiiWare demos were removed from the service on January 31. When questioned about the removals, a Nintendo representative told Joystiq, "From the start, the demo program was always planned to be available for a limited time on a trial basis."

Iwata had originally stated his hopes that the demo program would help sales of WiiWare games pick up. Does this sudden and very quick direction change mean that it didn't help as much as Nintendo wanted? Or did they even test demos long enough to accurately figure out if it works?