14 DAY TRIAL // With all the Wii news surfacing like a river of hot lava, it's hard to keep track of all recent developments. During the press conference that announced the full next gen console specs, Nintendo has also brought about a rather peculiar idea. Although Wii internet browsing is free at launch and on the following period, Nintendo is set upon charging money for the service.
Introducing the Internet Channel, the facility dramatically changes the relationship between a user's home, the television and the Internet. A fully functional Opera browser for Wii can be downloaded for Wii points, a service compatible with macromedia Flash. Nintendo will not start charging until June of next year. The motivation behind the specific date remains a complete mystery. It's interesting that company representatives didn't took unto themselves at clarifying the matter during the US press conference. Wii has the on-board memory capable of storing Virtual Console games, other downloadable content and a web browser simultaneously.
Taking into consideration past attempts at offering full browsing capabilities on console, one should remember the price paid for the Opera browser on Nintendo DS. The decision is easily explained considering the dual-screen portable doesn't have enough internal memory to store the program. While DS cartridges are cheaper to produce than their GBA counterpart, they aren't free. Sony's solution for PSP was slightly different, as gamers could download the web browser, forever saved via Memory Stick.