Opera on the Nintendo DS

dxprog writes "Opera has announced that they and Nintendo are going in together to create a web browser for the DS. The browser, based on Opera's core engine, will take advantage of the system's two screens and the touchscreen to provide on-the-go portable internet access. From the article: 'Within just five seconds of turning on the system, the Nintendo DS is already fully operational. This makes it the ideal device to enable people to swiftly obtain the latest information from the internet, wherever they are.'" Update: 02/15 15:50 GMT by Z : More information about the browser and game announcements available from Gamasutra, and Iwata's aim that they'll hit 10 Million DS units sold is reported on the Next Generation site.

It's about time!

[Diablerie]

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to make a web browser for the DS. I think it's much better suited for it than the PSP.

With Opera working on it, I'm hoping for some good results.

Pedantic, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgive the pedantry, but it's the "Nintendo DS", not the Gameboy DS.

Hairsplitting, perhaps, but on a site as big as Slashdot, I imagine Nintendo would appreciate their product's name being correct in the headline.

How much will it cost?

[dalmiroy2k]

I would pay up to $35 (like a game) but not more. Let's hope the browser is not crippled and support secure pages and some kind of web based IM.

Interesting... but...

[J_Meller]

I'm assuming that they are going to distribute this browser in the traditional cart form but what about future DS versions such as the DS Lite? Do they plan to integrate it with the built in UI? Also since the cartridges are read/write, will it be possible to upgrade the browser through the net if they discover any potentially harmful security risks (buffer overflows) or new features? I wonder if they plan to market this in traditional gaming stores, personally I would love to see this, but I'm afraid that many consumers that buy the DS for it's simplicity and pick-up and play style may shy away from the technology.

Re:How easy on the eyes will it be?

[Lehk228]

MAC filtering with WEP or WPA is reduandant, if someone is capable of sniffing your traffic long enough to compute the wireless key they will not have any trouble looking to see what MAC needs to be spoofed. MAC filtering is really only useful as a minimalist security implementation or a workaround for a device which does not support or work properly with any form of encrypted traffic.

Opera is nice software

[goldcd]

but it's their back-end squashing that makes their 'reduced-platform' offering so nice. For example if you're viewing on your phone having the jpgs squashed by the Opera proxy server cuts your bandwidth cost, dramatically speeds up the browser and reduces the amount of memory required on the client.

My main complaint with the PSP is the damn thing keeps on running out of memory if you load up a single bulky page.

I think it should be very nice on the DS - prefer using it on my SE phone than IE on my PocketPC and I can only see it being nicer with the better screen(s) and a touchscreen.

Seems a bit cheaky charging users for it though - maybe the cart will have some local cache on it..