Opera has got a lot of press with its deals with Nintendo, to make the browser for the Nintendo DS and Wii. There has been a lot of excitement around this, and several have first learned about Opera because of this, and tested it out on their computer, too. Some like it a lot, others are more reserved – as should be expected. However, many are very interested in what Opera will support on the DS and Wii.
Compared to the desktop versions for PC, Mac, *nix – the soon to be released Nintendo DS version doesn’t support much. No PDF, no Flash, no Java… Many people who would like to visit sites like YouTube with their Nintendo DS have been disappointed to learn this – many disappointed with Opera for not supporting this stuff.
Now, of course they should be allowed to be disappointed – but who should they be disappointed with? Opera? Or someone else?
When we look at it, Opera does the same on the Nintendo boxes as they do on the PC: They make the browser. They don’t make the Flash or PDF support: Adobe does that. They don’t make Java: Sun does that. Apple makes the Quicktime plugin. Should we expect anything else on Nintendo DS? I don’t think so. Opera makes the browser – had Adobe made Flash available for the DS, I’m sure Opera would’ve supported it there, too.
So, enjoy Opera DS, those of you who get it, there’s lot of enjoyment to get without those plugins, too. And who knows, maybe Nintendo strikes a deal with Adobe and others, too, to make plugins possible?