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Stream Music to your TV with Wii’s Opera browser
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So the other day I was playing with the Wii that I bought my kids (and me) for Christmas and I have to admit this thing is a far cooler than I expected. One thing that intrigued me was the Opera browser that you can purchase from the Wii store for about $5.00 (500 wii points). If the iPhone could inspire thousands of Safari based sites dedicated to that platform I wonder if Wii’s Opera browser could do the same thing?
Messing around one night after the Wii’s days work of playing Mario Party and Paper Mario I decided to put the browser through its paces. As most of my readers know I am a huge fan of Pandora and I wanted to see if Pandora worked. It doesn’t, you run out of memory. I could have given up but I didn’t. I tried LastFM and was surprised that it worked perfectly. I believe LastFm doesn’t download a complete song down to buffer therefore working within Opera for Wii’s memory requirements. So now I can stream music through my Wii to my surround system without additional hardware.
Also worth noting is that MySpace, MySpace music, Gmail, and YouTube works as it should. I will be doing some reoccurring articles on what works and what doesn’t as I see the Wii Opera browser as a really great way to bring content to the TV. Stay Tuned.
Nintendo and Apple to partner on games for iPhone
If you can’t beat them join them. With the iPhone days away from being launched Nintendo has apparently begun working with Apple, licensing a limited amount of content for the new phone. It was rumored a while back that Nintendo was planning on releasing a phone on their own, however this was scuttled shortly after the iPhone was first shown in January.
These exclusive games will be released on the iTunes Store at a $29.00 price point a few months after the iPhone launches. No word on whether Nintendo will be distributing iPod versions of these games. A major hangup in development has been the lack of buttons on the iPhone that was remedied by a touchscreen D-pad. One might wonder how Nintendo fans may see view playing on a phone without a traditional D-pad.
Asked anonymously whether or not these games would cut into Nintendo DS sales, we heard a resounding no. The logic is that because the licensed games will be exclusive and cater to an older audience they should not intrude into Nintendo’s existing markets.
The one thing Nintendo does worry about is their amount of control of Apple. While not developing a cell phone internally has its advantages, giving up control of platform has not historically been a practice Nintendo has taken. Nevertheless Nintendo sees gaming on Mobile Smart Phones as a threat to their core business and a partnership with Apple could be seen as a bold move into a very profitable market. One thing is for sure Nintendo should expect to share in the marketing spotlight of the iPhone in the same way that AT&T has.
Can’t wait for Nintendo to put games on the iPhone you can some here and here
