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Wii Weather Channel Up, Browser Coming
Nintendo's console has been out almost exactly a month, and the company is now rolling out some of the system's additional features. As you are reading this, your Wii should already be capable of giving you the weather forecast. Additionally, this Friday a trial version of the web browser should become available. From the Pro-G article: "The fully featured Opera web browser for the Wii was intended to be available for the launch of the console. Sadly it wasn't, but the good news is that you'll only have to wait until Friday to get a taster of what it can do. A trial version of the Wii Opera web browser will be available for free from December 22. The final version of the Opera browser will be released at the end of March 2007 and will be free for all Wii owners until the end of June 2007. After this date, anyone who hasn't already downloaded the browser will have to pay 500 Wii Points."
...the fact that I STILL HAVE TO TYPE EVERYTHING WITH THE !@#$%@#%^#$^&E$%& CLICKY THINGY???
Why in the world can't I plug my USB keyboard in it and type?
WHY, GOD, WHY???
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
Even for people who don't get their hands on a Wii until later next year, $5 is a bargain for Opera. It's a great browser and a great price seeing all the extra considerations and functionality that has to be programmed in to work well on the Wii at 480i/p. I remember spending more than that on a copy before they went free.
My only question is, how is Nintendo going to block users from playing emulated games via the web? That could seriously hurt Virtual Console game sales if someone can figures out all the logistics behind getting the remote to work correctly through the web browser.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
At the risk of feeding the troll:
The Wii has a certain amount of built-in flash memory, enough to store several VC games, Wii Save Games, and yes, even a web browser. You may also expand this to your liking by adding in a standard SD card.
No need to swap disk like we all did with the Dreamcast.
-Buddy of DoQ
I just booted up the Wii to give the weater channel a shot, and while I'm not sure about its everyday usefulness, it is definitely designed well. You can view the weather for today, tomorrow, or get a five day forecast. The thing that I really like is the globe menu. It basically presents you with a globe, which you can spin around with the wiimote, and view the weather anywhere in the world. Again, while I doubt I will ever really use this, its just plain fun to whip the earth around with the wiimote.
They probably use a variant of the following line of thought: We are in business to make a profit.
It's not too hard to imagine that as the justification.
Also, the browser isn't necessary to use the Nintendo online features. That's built in already. The browser is for porn.
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Like anyone with a Wii will ever want to go outside.
- John
If I'm thinking right (I'm too lazy to go look at operas website) the portable version of opera still costs. So that could be one reason Nintendo is charging for it.
The built-in 512MB memory can currently store something like EVERY VC game available, and about 2000 blocks of save game memory (the typical game so far using about 4). since a formatted 512 SD card shows up as a little less than 4000 blocks, I'm assuming its 'blocks' are counted in megabits.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Firstly... the browser is _not_ going to be a portal for "finding other Nintendo goodness". The Wii _comes_ with a Shopping Channel that allows you to buy stuff (including retro games... and this browser when it's released).
What I wan't to know is why you think the browser should be free? Opera is the browser of choice here because they have built considerable functionality in for displaying web pages on resolution and input limited devices (cell phones, PDAs, the OLPC and now the Wii). Are you saying that all of their work isn't worth anything? I mean, we are just talking about $5 here...
Also... you make it sound as if Nintendo is the one that made the browser and is selling it. In fact, Opera put money into porting a browser (and by all accounts it works really well) and is selling it through Nintendo's Shopping Channel. I see no problem with this.
Look... I love Linux/OSS/Free software as much as anyone... and I also enjoy getting most of it for free (as in money). But, what is everyone's aversion to paying for some software? As a computer scientist I know how much work goes into making good software, and I don't understand why people around here think it should always be free (as in money).
Friedmud
As I've remarked before, the really exciting thing about the inclusion of Opera in the Wii is that it includes Flash support. That means that you can use the Wiimote to play mouse-only Flash games.
Opera is already installed on every Wii (it's used to power the Wii Shop Channel), but to access other websites you have to use DNS redirection hacks... On Friday you'll be able to use it freely. Meanwhile, wiicade.com is a website dedicated to developing/promoting Flash games explicitly designed to be played on the Wii.
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
It also gives the UV for my home here in NZ as '2' while the local TV n ews has been at '11' all week (ozone hole at the height of the summer evil)
Although your comparison between a Wii marked-up on ebay vs. the retail price of the cheaper PS3 is spectacular, I still don't see how this has anything to do with what the GP was talking about. The GP is explaining that the PS3's (retail) price includes the price of development of their browser, whereas the Wii doesn't because they separate the browser from the system as an optional upgrade. It doesn't matter what they are going for on ebay since Nintendo or Sony do not make any extra money from ebay auctions.
You do know that this is not with every console. This also does not drive the price of the console itself right? This is for people who want it.
Most do. Currently I have 7 VC titles (at least 1 for each system) and I LOVE this feature. So far the only one I found that it hasn't worked far is Mario 64, but you save after every you get every star anyway...
My Xbox can show me the weather, youtube, movie trailers, and it can play just about every classic video game for the NES, SNES, Genesis, etc.
That's the only way I can see using this... I'm playing a game and I want to check the weather right quick so I hop over to the weather channel then back to the game.
Um... wouldn't it be easier to just look out the window real quick during a cut-scene or loading screen?
I don't live in a major city. If I want to tune the television to the weather channel, it might be ten minutes before I get local forecast information. Using the Wii weather channel would get me to my town's forecast within a minute. That's quicker and easier than going upstairs to my computer, even assuming that the computer is on.
Have you actually downloaded it though? My friends bought what they thought was Super Mario Brothers, and found it was Mario Brothers (y'know, the "battle game" included as a minigame in Super Mario Bros. 3). Still fun, but not quite Super Mario Brothers.
I recognize people by their sigs. Is that a bad thing?