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Opera on the Nintendo DS

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-that's-a-wierd-one dept.

dxprog writes "Opera has announced that they and Nintendo are going in together to create a web browser for the DS. The browser, based on Opera's core engine, will take advantage of the system's two screens and the touchscreen to provide on-the-go portable internet access. From the article: 'Within just five seconds of turning on the system, the Nintendo DS is already fully operational. This makes it the ideal device to enable people to swiftly obtain the latest information from the internet, wherever they are.'" Update: 02/15 15:50 GMT by Z : More information about the browser and game announcements available from Gamasutra, and Iwata's aim that they'll hit 10 Million DS units sold is reported on the Next Generation site.

9 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. This truly shows the versatility of Opera. by CyricZ · · Score: 5, Informative

    Doing something like this truly shows the versatility of Opera. They sure have come up with a fantastic products. Not only does it work perfectly on desktop systems, rivalling Firefox, Internet Explorer, Konqueror and Safari, but it is also a gem on far less powerful systems.

    With all the talk about the flexibility of Firefox, I just can't imagine seeing it run on similar hardware. Enough people complain about Firefox leaking memory that it seems almost impossible for it to remotely support such devices.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    1. Re:This truly shows the versatility of Opera. by masklinn · · Score: 4, Informative

      You don't really think they're merely recompiling mainstream Opera to run it on this kind of platform are you?

      Opera, Opera for Mobiles and Opera for Devices (which is DS' opera) are different products, only the core (the rendering engine) is cross-platform, just as Gecko (Firefox' rendering engine) is completely cross-platform but not necessarily the interface itself.

      --
      "The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
    2. Re:This truly shows the versatility of Opera. by Pneuma+ROCKS · · Score: 3, Informative
      Opera, Opera for Mobiles and Opera for Devices (which is DS' opera) are different products, only the core (the rendering engine) is cross-platform, just as Gecko (Firefox' rendering engine) is completely cross-platform but not necessarily the interface itself.

      On a related note, I think, the Gecko-based browser for mobile devices is called Minimo, and is currently under development. I don't think this would work out-of-the-box on a DS, but maybe with a few alterations it could.

      --
      Favorite quote: "
    3. Re:This truly shows the versatility of Opera. by Svenheim · · Score: 5, Informative

      The DS has an ARM9 at 66 MHz, and an ARM7 at 33 MHz. There is no ARM5.

  2. headline fails by cycledance · · Score: 5, Informative

    there is no such thing as a gameboy ds. its nintendo ds. the gameboy advance sp and gameboy micro are the current gameboy.

  3. Pretty easy on the eyes. by Viewsonic · · Score: 4, Informative
    The upper screen is a zoomed in view, while the lower is a zoomed out view that you can scroll around the zoom view with the stylus. It may not be the best way to browse if you have other means, but I think this is going to be more than excellent for people stuck at airports and hotels who dont want to lug around all these crazy 17" widescreen 20 pound desktops...I mean laptops that seem to be all the rage these days.

    It looks like a nice step up from cell phone browsers in both the fact that you gain more screen area, an actually decent input device, and the fact that you're not getting charged for every byte sent over the line (Depending, usually airport wifi access is free).

    I'm looking forward to it. Especially now that Google Chat is integrated into their gmail, I can have full IM access with my DS on the go as well. Slick.

  4. Re:Keyboard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Opera WAP? Opera doesn't have a WAP browser. All Opera browsers are full web browsers.

  5. More DS announcements by rayde · · Score: 5, Informative

    for more pictures, check this article with pictures of the Opera browser and also the newly announced Nintendo DS TV Tuner. Other announcements are a new Super Mario Brothers being released in May in Japan, and a budget priced Tetris DS.

  6. two viewing modes will be available by Lawmune · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to brianj (Opera employee) on the Opera forums:

    "Opera will have two modes: fit-to-width mode (similar to what mobile users are already familiar with their mobile phones using the Opera Mobile browser). This mode will use Small Screen Rendering to fit the page across both screens. Alternatively, there is a DS mode which displays an overall page view on the lower screen (where you may use the touch screen to navigate around a sort of "mini map") and read the text on the top screen in full-sized view."

    Don't know about small screen rendering? See here: http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/smallscreen/

    Still not convinced? See what your website looks like on a small screen using the Opera Mini Simulator (which probably isn't exactly how it will look on the DS, but it's an approximation. The DS certainly has more screen real estate than my pathetic cell phone, anyway.)

    Also, according to DS Advanced:

    "The Opera software is currently slated to release in Japan during the month of June at the price of 3800 yen, roughly $30, and will include ATOK Kanji conversion software."