Downloaded the hub and bowling (club pass, because I do like to bowl). Haven't booted it up yet (thanks Toki Tori 2+), but it's waiting for me this evening.

@PogueSquadron

Not with strangers, at least. Probably not at all. Maybe it'll get patched in, but...I doubt it.

As for right now I don't feel compelled to get it. If we ever have a bowling tournament some time I'll probably just pay the $2 for 24 hour pass. You wouldn't think that was a good idea, but I'm drifting towards it now.

Edit: Finally played this morning, one game of tennis and one of bowling. The games are still very fun. Thoughts:

1.) Is tennis in this game/resort any different from the original Wii sports? It doesn't have you calibrate the WM+ so I'm under the impression that the game doesn't use it?
2.) Bowling is stellar as usual. Hard to get back into the feel of things. I bowled a 176, but thankfully it was still enough to win over two opponents.
3.) I know the game is supposed to be simple and cute, but I wish they would've done something more with the graphics. It's basically Wii Sports Resort in HD (which obviously is what the game is haha).
4.) I wish bowling had an option to have all bowlers bowl simultaneously. I get why they don't do this because it's more realistic, but that would be cool to have as an option when playing against friends.
5.) There's nothing to do while you're waiting for others to finish bowling. Well, you can change your avatar's smack talk, but that's about it. It would be nice if you could post to Miiverse while you're waiting or something. Or maybe have some minigame while you're waiting.
6.) Even though this is online (and I hate being naysayer guy because the game is fun), I feel so detached from my opponents. At the very least, I wish I could play against NW'ers and chat over a wireless headset or something. I hate hate hate being the guy saying "It's 2013, what is going on here?" But all the same...it's 2013! How do we not have an option to chat with each other? Shouldn't the days of having to Skype with a friend while playing a game online be over? It's so silly.

With all that in mind, I don't think I'll buy the game after the free trial. But hey, if we ever have a big bowling tournament one night, hit me up and I'll put my $2 down.

@PogueSquadron
It does use WM+, you can tell by the fact there's somewhat 1:1 control of your tennis racket.

I'm a fan of the communication system. I made some custom online banter and it was pretty funny, probably got some laughs out of my opponent too.
Anyway, this game is missing a few things. For one, I can't compare my online ranking to my friends, unless I'm missing it somewhere? All I can do is compare the single-player events high scores. Secondly, why can't we make a Negative World Club? This should be standard moving forward in all online games, not just limited to Wii Fit U. I've been pretty dominant online, made it up to three-star ranking. Not sure I'll bite on tennis right away due to lag issues and control problems, but it's pretty fun. Bowling is pretty awesome, and since it's slower paced I have time to change up my banter mid-game. Still not perfect communication, but I can get some more comments in there throughout the match. I get why you wait for others in bowling, because this is how it works in a real game. Otherwise everyone would finish at a different time, and it would just be a glorified time trials instead of a competitive match. Plus you couldn't encourage or taunt others.

Why does this lag? It's not like its not one of the best selling/hugest games of ALL time and doesn't deserve the attention...

Other online games on Wii U have been quite good. Though it had SLIGHT issues I'd say Trine 2 has easily been the best Wii U online experience that I've tried. Fantastic online coop. Great experience playing that with my bro.

I'll probably download the trial but I'm not sure if I'd buy permanent versions of any of the original Wii Sports games other than Bowling and Golf, and those are sort of not the best online multiplayer games anyway. OR ARE THEY? It's tough to put a finger on what made Bowling so fun multiplayer considering that it's not a game where you interact with the others in any way... I guess just the party atmosphere around playing it. Is it something that needs physical presence to really enjoy fully?

@carlosrox It might deserve the attention, but should we assume that it got it? I think the fact that we are getting this instead of doing a brand new online Wii Sports 3 kind of says something about the attention Nintendo put into this.

Yeah it's been an incredibly quiet release on Nintendo's part. Unless you follow Nintendo on Facebook you might not even know that Wii Sports and Wii Fit came out.

This rerelease has been tremendously exciting for me, oddly enough. I've been counting the days until its release, and I finally tucked in to it yesterday. Wii Sports Tennis online is super-fun. I've played for more than an hour each time I've started it up. The MotionPlus support makes the gameplay much more interesting to me. I mean, it's not like I can swing exactly like I do in real life (like in bowling), but the added fidelity is nice. Honestly, I'd buy it just for the offline play, to have four-player MotionPlus Wii Sports Tennis. The new training games are really fun, too. Which is good, because the online certainly has some issues. Like lag, limited modes, lag, matchmaking interface, lag, etc. I have to say, though, that the matchmaking for ANYONE play is lightning quick. Unbelievably fast. So fast that I wish it waited maybe a bit longer to assure me a strong connection against someone of a similar level.

But, y'know, this was a very quickly developed product. And online services usually evolve over time. I think that Nintendo will polish it up (or crack the whip a bit harder over at Bandai Namco). I mean, it's only a downloadable product at this point. They could easily just send us revised executables for each sport.

Anyway, I bought Tennis, as I knew I would. I DIDN'T want to buy Bowling, because it's Bowling. A truly amazing simulation of the real-life, boring-ass "sport". Buuuut... I've gotta say, those mini-games are pretty fun, man. And I like that you can play a variety of modes online. Initially, the whole wait-your-turn-online thing seemed like a terrible decision, but it actually works! At least with two people. I will probably pick this one up, too. But I'm still going to cringe every time someone suggests whipping it out at a party. I will also cringe if they suggest a game of Wii Bowling.

@Mop it up
Probably each sport. And it would probably be better to include NNIDs, too.

It'd be great if these games would track calories burned like in Wii Fit and that it could report back to Wii Fit U.

So how does it work for the 24 hour trial? Does it start when you download the game from the shop or is there something you do inside the hub to activate it?

@DrFinkelstein
I wore my Fit Meter while I played this morning

@DrFinkelstein
@anon_mastermind
I was about to suggest the same thing!

Downloaded the free trial on my niece's Wii U. We played local tennis first. We both felt like there wasn't much difference in the controls from the original. I didn't have the problem of my Mii backhanding when I was really hitting from the front, but there were still lots of times when I would swing and miss for seemingly no reason.

Then we tried online tennis. I'm happy that you can play as a local team versus online opponents. Definitely more fun that way than playing by myself. But we ran into serious lag. One game took forever because it was almost impossible to return a serve so it just kept going back to deuce. Really hope Nintendo sorts that out because it was pretty game ruining. We tried to play in the Connecticut club in hopes that it would be better but definitely not enough people with the game in Connecticut to have success doing that. Maybe I should have tried New York.

Then we played bowling. Too bad you can't have two players local and the rest online in that mode. My niece and I played online and alternated frames. We won, but two guys (who sucked) dropped out mid-game. Still, it worked great and it was fun to change up the banter. If I get it myself I'll definitely try to come up with some fun stuff to get approved from Miiverse.

Online bowling definitely seems like it would be fun to play with friends. Maybe we should bring back tiny chat so that we can easily do voice chat while playing.

Downloaded the demo last night. Had a lot of fun playing Tennis against strangers. I'm not any good at it, but it was fun nonetheless.

Definitely going to have to play this with some of my Negative World compadres. Could we maybe set up Tennis and/or Bowling nights where we could just play Wii Sports with whoever wants to join in?

@kriswright

I'm all about a Bowling night. Any night but Wednesdays works for me...really Thursdays are the most ideal.

I'm not as much into Tennis, but I'd rent it for a night.

Count me in for either Bowling or Tennis nights too!

I never really checked but since Tennis and Bowling both came out at the same time, is it 10$ for BOTH or 10$ per game?

@VofEscaflowne

$10 per game. $50 total if you want to get all five in the long run. I am hoping they release new sports. If so, I could see the $10 thing sticking and making sense.

Did the trial last night and the girlfriend and I got bored of it really quickly. Wii Fit U is way more fun. And if we want to do the sports thing, Wii Sports Resort remains far superior.

I guess the whole point is online play, but shmeh.

Anyone interested in playing online tonight? I've got my 24 hour pass.

I had totally forgotten about the Club being downloaded automatically to your Wii U, so I was surprised to see a message about it just now.

Gotta say I'm having a pretty good time with this, for the most part. Playing online has been quite a bit of fun, apart from one match that was so laggy we might as well have been playing Tennis through an exchange of Powerpoint slides. If Nintendo patches in worldwide online play for this, I'll cough up some money.

But I don't see the Motion Plus as being a big help in Tennis. Might even be the other way around, 'cause while the racket seems to be in the exact position I'm holding it before I strike, it seems to go with whichever direction the first movement goes in when I actually try to hit the ball, and that kind of screws with my head a bit.