Wii and DS News

We have 2 bits of Nintendo news for you today; the first is an announcement of the Opera Browser for the Nintendo Wii console (yay!) Second is a rumor floating around the web of the NDS Lite getting a bigger screen size.

Nintendo's wildly popular Wii™ home video game system not only revolutionizes how people play games, but it also entices new people into the world of gaming. On Dec. 22, Nintendo and Opera Software bring the Internet to the living room couch with a free beta version of the Opera Web browser. Wii owners who are connected and have activated the Wii Shop Channel can download a free beta version of the Opera browser to activate the Internet Channel of the Wii Menu and begin surfing the Web.

"This newest Wii Menu channel provides yet another feature to draw non-gamers in," says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. "All kinds of people already have discovered that Wii is like nothing they have ever tried before, and our red-hot sales reflect this public enthusiasm."

"Our software brings the power and reach of the Internet to the hottest video game system available," says Scott Hedrick, Executive Vice President, Devices, at Opera Software. "Wii's unique interface adds a new dimension to our browser, making it a useful tool that the whole family will enjoy operating with ease."

The final version of the Opera browser will be available at the end of March 2007, and will be free for all Wii owners to download through the end of June 2007. After June, users who haven't already downloaded the Opera browser can go to the Wii Shop Channel to download it for 500 Wii Points.


Next up is a rumor of bigger NDS screens:

Love them or hate them, Nintendo has got to be one of the smartest marketers on the planet. They saw that the bulky (and somewhat unsightly) Nintendo DS wasn't as popular as it could have been, so they design a sleeker, almost Apple-like DS Lite to appeal to the masses and its popularity spreads like wildfire. Older people fall in love with Brain Age, younger folks with Pokémon, and the rest of us are drawn in by Tetris DS and Mario Kart DS. But wait, they're not done.

Word from a French gaming magazine is that Nintendo is working on yet another version of the Nintendo DS. Whereas the Lite shrunk things down to more pocketable proportions, this yet unnamed iteration will make those trademark dual screens bigger. The new displays will be in the 3.5- to 3.8-inch realm, and they even toss in a couple of other upgrades to spice up the new package even further. If the smaller version is the DS Lite, does that make this the DS Heavy? (for reference, the original unit is unofficially known as the DS Phat)

Still a rumor, but there are rumblings that this new DS will be ready for market some time in 2007.