Wii: Internet Telly for Dummies Now Available

That’s right folks, the Wii’s Internet Channel is finally here and it’s freely available to download in the Wii Shop Channel right now.

Though why everyone is so keen to flag the fact that an Internet browser is free is slightly beyond some of us tight-arses here in the SPOnG office, but more of that anon. First let’s take a look at what Opera on Wii actually does.

Firstly, many of you may not have heard of or used Opera in the past as most normal people tend to use Internet Explorer and most geeks opt for the Open Source staple that is Mozilla Firefox. So why has Nintendo chosen to partner with Opera? Well, the reality is that both IE and Firefox would most likely use more resources than the Wii has to offer.

Opera has, of course, already been used with the DS – ergo, Nintendo has an ongoing relationship with the company.

Also, in the case of IE, there is also the minor issue that Microsoft would probably have shied away from partnering with Nintendo!

Whatever your desktop browser of choice though, Opera on Wii is a pretty different experience to what you are used to. Once you have downloaded the browser (with a nifty little Mario skipping across the screen to keep you amused as it comes up your pipe!) you see the immediate difference. Navigation is via the Wii Remote so you simply point and click to go to a Web page, select a link or input text.

If you want to surf and check out multiple pages it’s very slow to use and, if you are a competent typist (which most modern corporate drones are) then you will be itching to get back to keyboard-input. SPOnG suspects that older users (retired people and those not chained to their keyboard and PC screen 40 hours a week) will feel immediately much more comfortable with Wii Opera. But for us having to click text fields via the cursor and the on-screen keyboard was a bit of a pain, so we checked with Nintendo to see if they had any plans for a wireless Wii keyboard.

“No plans at this time to bring a wireless keyboard to Wii,” it promptly informed us. Okay, that’s that then. (Hint: bring a wireless keyboard in, Nintendo!).

However, input gripes aside, after a few minutes of getting use to the Wii Remote to choose and move around websites, you realise that it’s pretty nifty to have instant Internet access on the TV – for those moments when you might need to do a quick Google or news check and just can’t be bothered to get up of the sofa.

So, instead of a mouse , the [A] button on the Wii Remote works as "left-click" and [B] is used to scroll vertically and horizontally around the viewing area (hint: also bring a wireless mouse in Nintendo - a nice white one like those nice ones that Apple make!).

The plus (+) and minus (-) buttons are used to zoom in and out for a better view of the page, which is a superb feature, particularly if you are short-sighted! The [1] button pulls up your favourites list and [2] reformats the page into massive text which is particularly handy if you are very short-sighted.

Most pages we have checked out so far are rendered pretty much exactly as they would be in IE or Firefox, with basic options at the bottom of the page to go back, forward, refresh, home or to your favourites. Beyond that, there are few features to play around with, although bear in mind this is the beta version.

Nintendo plans to introduce the full version of the browser next March, which will be free to download until June, when it plans to start charging end-users 500 Wii points (around £3.75) to download it.

SPOnG is not entirely convinced by this strategy of passing on what is surely a marginal licensing cost (of Opera) to the end user. Let us know your thoughts on the matter in the forum.