Wii Opera browser is OUT! 2:30AM EST

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It’s currently 2:00AM EST, and the pictures are coming in. Looks like it was released in Europe and Australia around 12:00AM EST. Here in the states it was a sporadic release, I heard North Dakota got it around 1:45AM.

It’s live at 3:00AM EST for the USA. I downloaded the browser and have been putting it to the test. This is just a live dump of info that I was accumulating during my first few hours with the browser.
The following takes place between 3:00AM and 6:00AM:

- It’s Flash 7, so no Flash 8 sites, (doh! there goes the first version of WiiFii.net..)

- Duck Hunt and Simon Flash games on WiiFii.net work GREAT as far as frame rate, the one thing I’m noticing is that the hand cursor is too big for a lot of Flash games at the moment

- YouTube works great, maximizing videos works great too.

- Wiigg.net worked great.

- Passes the Acid 2 browser test!

- Does NOT support QuickTime, Windows Media, Java, or PDF

- Digg.com froze on me 4+ times, couldn’t get it to work. It would flash white then bring back to the main page. This happened while I was capturing a direct feed into my computer, now that I have it back on the TV it works great. It seems that reseting the browser fixed it

- wii.ign.com completely froze the browser, then it worked. Videos don’t play (asks for new flash version)

- Myspace.com works great, even the music players. I could imagine some pages will crash it (those with glittery gifs, flash slideshows, embedded audio, etc.

- maps.google.com, worked great! The only thing that didn’t work was double clicking to zoom in. I recommend zooming in with the wiimote so you can see the google zoom tool at a decent size.

- local.live did NOT work

- Text 14pt and smaller is very hard to read, but the zoom works very quick and intuitively

- The screen resolution on a 16×9 TV is 1024×500 (very odd size, may lead into wide screen flash games). Check the resolution here: http://www.cyscape.com/showbrow.aspx?bhcp=1

That’s how I came up with all that info.

- Flash games play at their set frame rate (give or take). Actually I’ve noticed some dropping of frames in games that are not all vector based.

- Flash custom cursors will not override the wii cursor

- Shockwave is not supported

- When testing the browser settings it says the code name is “Mozilla”. Apparently this is normal.

- It is a build of Opera 9

- Cookies are supported

- Flickr works great

- The Wii cursor seems too big for a lot of the flash games I played it would cover too much of the screen, I think I’m going to develop a whole line of Wii friendly games, with the correct resolution and areas that don’t require pin point accuracy.

- The bottom menu “favorites”, “home”, etc. takes up at least 20% of the screens hight. I think some sort of OS X type docking system may work best here, you should be able to dock it left, right, or bottom and also have it hide.

- Another gripe about some flash games, if they extend past the viewable area, you get the Wii scroll arrows letting you know you can scroll, there needs to be a way to toggle them or we’ll need to see a whole fleet of Wii games that fit the correct resolution of the Wii. (I’m working on some right now)

- Going to favorites or hitting back will sometime “choke” the browser. Definitely still buggy, but hey it’s a trial and they have 3 months to work it out.

From reader “theAbsintheHare”:

I just figured out that you can scroll up and down much faster if you point the wiimote so the Hand Cursor is on the black edge of the screen and press the direction you want to scroll on the Directional Pad. Pressing left or right on the Directional pad while the cursor is offscreen will tab select links on the page.

Here are some photos, I’m working on a direct feed video as we speak (now up). I’m tired and have to get up early for work, but F’ it. I’ll continue to write at 6AM for you guys.

Note to self, stop trying to be the first Wii website with exclusive information, you’ll never beat the big guys, you’re just one person and sleep is good.

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