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Nintendo Releases Wii Browser For Free, Updates Flash
An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo has released an update for the Wii Internet Channel (a version of the Opera browser). It is now a free download (if you already paid for it, you get a free NES game), and finally supports Flash 9 content after being limited to Flash 7 ever since it was launched in late 2006."
http://www.youtube.com/xl is an easy way to access youtube content from your wii
Works perfectly in mine with the OLDER version of the internet channel
It's just like every other feature that is included for free: you don't think you'll ever use it, but once or twice when you actually do you realize it was totally worth the zero dollars you paid for it. I have it because for some reason it was free when they first offered it. I mainly use it for three things
1. I am playing a game on the 360, need to check gamefaqs for a hint or something, and the computer is being used or I don't feel like bringing the laptop in
2. -ahem- websites that I don't want to view on my computer, for a variety of reasons
3. The wii happens to be on and I don't want to start a game but am bored
I don't know about that... Remember when the Wii was the "cheap" system? Now we have a $200 xbox and a $300 ps3, both half their original launch prices. But the Wii has actually gone up from $269 to $279 (inflation?). (Canadian prices) There's a reason the other guys are aggressively lowering their prices...
PC ownership in the Far East is much lower than in our decadent Westron cultures.
Indeed, the Shire, Bree and what is left of Arnor have saturation computer ownership and ubiquitous WiFi. Mordor, OTOH, is stuck on DOS 5.0 and 33k modems since the recent collapse of political power in that region.
It may be that Nintendo do not supply guidelines in writing, but if the develoeprs had actually used a Wii before writing ther games, wii would not be faced with the POS tha is our limited choice. Several times we have gone out to buy games for a party or other excuse, and come back wiht dross because we felt obliged to buy *something*. Honestly, the Wii market is desperate for any new game that is playable.
I remain in home of a multi-player World Mapouka Championship, but I am not hlding my breath. (It it was released, I might end up holding some other part of my anatomy :-)
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
It's got USB keyboard support for that.
signature is pants
Wii Fit Plus
Wii Sports Resort
Muramasa: The Demon Blade
Red Steel 2
New Super Mario Brothers
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
+ a bunch of 360 ports that probably won't be as good.
+ a bunch of sports games that are better on the Wii thanks to the Wii Motion Plus.
Post Christmas there is:
Mario Galaxy 2
Metroid: Other M
No More Heroes 2
+ a bunch of 360 ports that probably won't be as good.
The ______ Agenda
I just use a wireless USB Logitech keyboard I had lying around. No need to buy a specific Wii keyboard.
Actually I'm genuinely curious: Who uses the Wii browser and for what?
Browsing the web on a very bright 42" monitor is kinda' cool :)
With a wiimote, it means you'll have neither of: a hot laptop on your ball sack; or a desk between the couch and your TV.
...for watching videos on YouTube?
Haven't even bothered to install the browser so far, my wife's netbook runs circles around a Wii for couch surfing.
Actually I'm genuinely curious: Who uses the Wii browser and for what?
YouTube works wonderfully, though YouTube seems to serve pretty low-res videos at the moment (I don't think Wii has the processor power to decode HD videos anyway). So it works, but doesn't look exactly glorious - but still pretty watchable if you squint just right. And in this version, based on cursory testing, the YouTube XL fullscreen mode finally seems to work at tolerable framerate - it used to work nicely in non-fullscreen, but went sluggish in fullscreen. (Incidentally, Flash 7 for Linux suffered from the same problem but they fixed it in newer versions...)
And I've mostly been using the Internet Channel for watching streaming video and HomestarRunner stuff, quickly checking game guides, and occasionally posting to identi.ca. It's not the fastest browser around and goes sluggish on JavaScript-heavy pages like Slashdot (then again, so does my Athlon XP 3000+ desktop.) And there's no AdBlock to alleviate these things. And of course, I haven't figured out how to set up the USB keyboard layout to non-US layouts, but that's a minor problem. All in all, it does most of the stuff I'd expect from a set-top box browser just fine.
I am (unfortunately) a Flash dev.
The new Internet Channel supports Flash Lite 3, not Flash 9. Flash Lite 3 supports all the ActionScript Virtual Machine 1 (AVM1) content that will run on or before Flash 9. However, it does not support AVM2 content -- that is, content created with ActionScript 3 or Flex. ActionScript 3 was released with Flash 9. I don't know of any Flash 9 content that isn't written using AS3/AVM2 -- if you're trying to be backwards compatible (say, you're a corporation, and every 0.01% penetration counts) you're gonna code in Flash 7 or 8 anyway.
This opens up a bunch of content written with Flash 8, but it still means you're not going to able to use, say, the vast majority of games on Kongregate or YouTube HD. Besides that, the browser has so little memory available to it that any "high end" Flash content is off-limits anyway. This update really doesn't do much for me.
Although the updated Internet Channel identifies itself as a v9 Flash Player, it is actually still incapable of playing what anyone considers 'Flash 9 content' such as applications that use Adobe's Flex framework (or indeed anything that needs ActionScript 3).
It's really 'Flash Lite 3.1' as explained at http://www.adobe.com/products/flashlite/faq/
Well it won't happen here. Most slashdotters have no idea how to manipulate a SWF.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Yes, there certainly is.
You can leave it on, but be sure you don't leave a disk in the drive. It'll spin constantly and the drives simply are not rated for that much wear and tear. I left mine on (since they imply you should with the presence of all those spiffy channels on the main menu) but didn't think to pull out the disks. 1.5 years later, I'm dumping $70 on a new optical drive that you can really only get from Nintendo.
Culture is more than commerce