Nintendo DSi to come bundled with Opera
Thursday, 2. October 2008, 12:07:44
Nintendo today unveiled the DSi as an upgrade to the massively popular Nintento DS. There doesn’t seem to be any official information from Nintendo in English yet, and there are some conflicting reports on what the Japanese information actually states. Unfortunately, Nintendo of Japan’s site is using a Flash animation, so it’s impossible to use tools like Babelfish or Google Translate to translate it, and my Japanese is limited.
There are reports, however, stating that the DSi will have a built-in web browser (such as ITavisen’s article from earlier today). VG goes so far as to state that the browser is made by Opera. Some reports state that the browser is not to be built-in, but a free download. I haven’t seen any official pressrelease from Opera saying that it is Opera that will come with the DSi yet, but since Opera already did the ill-fated Nintendo DS browser, and the Wii Internet Channel browser, it sounds like the natural choice.
And the screenshot on Nintendo of Japan’s site (second-to-right tab, centre image) of the browser does look like a mix of the old DS Browser’s UI with the Wii Internet Channel’s buttons, so it only sounds natural.
I have a DS Lite, perhaps I’ll consider upgrading to a DSi. Having an easily-accessible built-in browser does sound nice, but it have better be faster than on the regular DS/DS Lite. That one has too little memory and is running on a too slow CPU to be very useful beyond browsing very basic sites. Unfortunately. There are limits to what you can make the such a small machine do.
Update: Opera Software confirms that the DSi browser is Opera.
There are reports, however, stating that the DSi will have a built-in web browser (such as ITavisen’s article from earlier today). VG goes so far as to state that the browser is made by Opera. Some reports state that the browser is not to be built-in, but a free download. I haven’t seen any official pressrelease from Opera saying that it is Opera that will come with the DSi yet, but since Opera already did the ill-fated Nintendo DS browser, and the Wii Internet Channel browser, it sounds like the natural choice.
And the screenshot on Nintendo of Japan’s site (second-to-right tab, centre image) of the browser does look like a mix of the old DS Browser’s UI with the Wii Internet Channel’s buttons, so it only sounds natural.
I have a DS Lite, perhaps I’ll consider upgrading to a DSi. Having an easily-accessible built-in browser does sound nice, but it have better be faster than on the regular DS/DS Lite. That one has too little memory and is running on a too slow CPU to be very useful beyond browsing very basic sites. Unfortunately. There are limits to what you can make the such a small machine do.
Update: Opera Software confirms that the DSi browser is Opera.
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