Today Nintendo released a trial version of their Opera-powered Wii Browser. I was curious to find out what the user agent would be, so I loaded up my site and checked my stats. Turns out it’s pretty clear who’s browsing with a Wii:
Opera/9.00 (Nintendo Wii; U; ; 1309-9; en)The trial version leaves some things to be desired, but that is expected. It does not seem to include the newest Flash player (some sites will play but YouTube will not) or Java. Interesting sidenote: is works really well for mouse-based Flash games like what you’d find at Orisinal, so long as you stay away from the sites that need keyboard input. Also, there seem to be a limited number of points you can go back in the browsing history (5, I think). Since Opera obviously doesn’t have a problem I figured this was a Wii problem, though it seemed to be pulling content for pages even when I navigated back to them. Moving around the screen is also a bit goofy as you have to hold B to move around, and the fact that you don’t have to click the arrows showing where you can scroll is not overly clear.
On the plus side, Text renders beautifully, although I may have an unfair advantage on a Sony Bravia. I’m only connected to the TV with composite video though, and the text is crystal clear. Everything else seems to render very well in true Opera fashion.
Cool addition overall, much like the Weather channel released earlier this week. Not a killer app like Wii Games, but enough to stretch the functionality a little further. Add a Wii keyboard (Wiiboard?) and it’d approach WebTV.
The the browser as of 1/19/08 is severely lacking in what makes a browser worth using i.e. the ability to “browse” internet. Most sites don’t function properly if at all and the flash memory overflow bug is a pain. It’s nice extra but its not ready for prime time and the perk isn’t worth the 5 bucks or the current exchange rate of one Nintendo game.
The User Agent has now been updated now that the browser is in production. It’s now…
Opera/9.10 (Nintendo Wii; U; ; 1621; en)
I hope this helps
Dan
just finally got the wii in may 08
net works fine, youtube / video.google, they all fine..
memory overflow is still problem and have to reload..