Just when Nintendo appeared to be the fuzzy, warm and loving corporation everyone says I think they are, a dark spot can be found on their shiny white veneer. This time, it involves the Opera Browser for Wii.
At CES, Game|Life talked with Opera about what we can expect in the final build for Wii’s browser (it’s in Beta, remember). What followed was an answer you would never expect — especially from an open source company like Opera! Did they sign a pact with the devil by partnering with Nintendo? You decide.
“I decided to ask what we might see in the final version that Nintendo will offer this spring. The thing is, Opera reps don’t know — in fact, they say, it’s Nintendo who’s calling the shots. They’d like to add support for widgets, maybe some tabbed browsing, all that good stuff. But if Nintendo doesn’t tell them to put it in, it doesn’t go in. Opera also brought their Nintendo DS browser software — currently only available in Europe and Japan. Why isn’t this out in the US? Opera says they’d like to, but again, it’s Nintendo’s call. They speculated it might be because Nintendo wanted to have internet hot-spot partners up and running first. I guess that whole thing with McDonald’s wasn’t the success they’d hoped it would be”
Mmm. Corporations. Deliciously evil. And yes, I still love them.
UPDATE: Opera is NOT open source, and I AM an open source journalist. I must retire in shame.
Is it really that surprising that Nintendo would want to control the appearance/features of products on their console? Even though the browser is made by Opera and has logos everywhere, you know people are still going to blame Nintendo if they don't like some feature that's included down the road.
The browser should be $5 for the "full" version. Anything more is a rip off in my opinion. Why pay money for a browser that's free on the computer. I'll take a small computer opera one over a large TV limited Opera one.One could only hope they release the DS Opera browser and/or include the good extras in the full version Wii one.
Opera is not open source.
If I'm not mistaken, Nintendo has already announced that the full version of Opera will be 500 Wii Points, so there's your 5 bucks, Shinn.Now that I know there's no release date set for the US version of Opera DS, I'm sorely tempted to import the European version. To be able to surf, read mail, maybe even do some IM or IRC eventually by sitting outside McDeath or Panera without having to lug my laptop around would just be too useful.