The browser on the Wii was amazing. I didn't use it all that often, but I was a big Opera fan back in the day, and it was amazing to see how well their engine scaled to all kinds of systems.
As far as I remember, there were even some games that supported the Wiimote natively? I don't remember if this was via Flash or Javascript, but there seems to be a library for the latter: https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/wii-js
I unfortunately never got to use the Nintendo DS version (the DS being WEP-only was a dealbreaker for me).
I remember poking around at the Wii U browser. Nintendo had examples of fetching the current state of buttons, analog sticks, and the touch screen to monitor for input.
While cool on paper, there wasn't a preventDefault() solution. So you could make a simple game where a sprite could move around and respond to "A," but if you press B, the browser would try to go Back a page. As the article mentions, the shoulder buttons activated a Gyro-based scroll mode (which wasn't great). "B" would go Back a page, Y would close/open the "curtain" on the TV, X would open the URL bar (thus showing the software keyboard and taking over all inputs), and Start/Select also did something, although I've since forgotten what.
So, although all button inputs were present, almost all of them also did something on the browser level, so nothing exciting ever came of it.
It's funny that this was my first thought, too. I am sure game console browsers were an entry point for whole generations of kids.
Mine WOULD have been through the Dreamcast, but because my parents were early adopters of Broadband internet, we never had a dial-up connection to hook the modem up to.
I did a bit of curious searching on the family PC, but one time I forgot to wipe the history, and the game was up. The first thing with a web browser that was "mine" was the PSP in high school, and I even had a special second memory card (512MB) that I would save things to that I'd take it out and hide it in a crevice in my bedframe when I was done.
The Game Boy Color/GBA also had a web browser in the form of the Mobile Trainer GB, although it didn't allow inputting arbitrary URLs (although one can modify the DNS, it wasn't documented) and its limited subset of HTML might stretch the definition of "web browser" a little.
I remember a couple of people making websites specifically for these apps. Wasn't super common, but there were definitely a few Nintendo forums and communities that were built with the 3DS browser's viewport and design in mind.
And while there's nothing official, there are ways to use the built in Switch browser like a normal browser through homebrew as well. I think one setup even allows functionality the default browser doesn't support, like normal HTML video tags.
It technically has one, but the only way to use it was to tap on some various links until you managed to get to a Google search page. It was never intended for actual use outside of Nintendo's curated pages.
Flash was on a bunch of mobile platforms, just not iOS. When it became clear that Apple were going to take a sizeable chunk of the market and were never going to support it, Adobe decided to cut their losses: https://web.archive.org/web/20111116013328/http://blogs.adob...
I remember trying to browse a Flash build promo website for Transformers 2 on my PSP (what a 2009 sentence) and it wouldn't load. I was quite disappointed.
I remember the Wii U browser’s MP4 playback being surprisingly helpful. Running the `http-server` npm package, I was able to get video from my laptop to the TV in a pinch.
Adding in Handbrake, it wasn’t that bad of a setup!
The browser on the Wii was amazing. I didn't use it all that often, but I was a big Opera fan back in the day, and it was amazing to see how well their engine scaled to all kinds of systems.
As far as I remember, there were even some games that supported the Wiimote natively? I don't remember if this was via Flash or Javascript, but there seems to be a library for the latter: https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/wii-js
I unfortunately never got to use the Nintendo DS version (the DS being WEP-only was a dealbreaker for me).
I bought the NDS version back in the day and let me tell you it was not worth the 40€ of my pocket money.
I remember poking around at the Wii U browser. Nintendo had examples of fetching the current state of buttons, analog sticks, and the touch screen to monitor for input.
While cool on paper, there wasn't a preventDefault() solution. So you could make a simple game where a sprite could move around and respond to "A," but if you press B, the browser would try to go Back a page. As the article mentions, the shoulder buttons activated a Gyro-based scroll mode (which wasn't great). "B" would go Back a page, Y would close/open the "curtain" on the TV, X would open the URL bar (thus showing the software keyboard and taking over all inputs), and Start/Select also did something, although I've since forgotten what.
So, although all button inputs were present, almost all of them also did something on the browser level, so nothing exciting ever came of it.
My first experience with porn was the Dreamcast browser.
It's funny that this was my first thought, too. I am sure game console browsers were an entry point for whole generations of kids.
Mine WOULD have been through the Dreamcast, but because my parents were early adopters of Broadband internet, we never had a dial-up connection to hook the modem up to.
I did a bit of curious searching on the family PC, but one time I forgot to wipe the history, and the game was up. The first thing with a web browser that was "mine" was the PSP in high school, and I even had a special second memory card (512MB) that I would save things to that I'd take it out and hide it in a crevice in my bedframe when I was done.
The Game Boy Color/GBA also had a web browser in the form of the Mobile Trainer GB, although it didn't allow inputting arbitrary URLs (although one can modify the DNS, it wasn't documented) and its limited subset of HTML might stretch the definition of "web browser" a little.
I remember a couple of people making websites specifically for these apps. Wasn't super common, but there were definitely a few Nintendo forums and communities that were built with the 3DS browser's viewport and design in mind.
And while there's nothing official, there are ways to use the built in Switch browser like a normal browser through homebrew as well. I think one setup even allows functionality the default browser doesn't support, like normal HTML video tags.
I skimmed but did not see any references to browser-based jailbreaks simplifying pwning several consoles.
If they brought up CDI and Pippin, then why leave out Commodore CDTV and CD32?
I thought the switch had a browser for a little bit. Am I mistaken?
It technically has one, but the only way to use it was to tap on some various links until you managed to get to a Google search page. It was never intended for actual use outside of Nintendo's curated pages.
I am surprised how deeply rooted Macromedia flash was.
For a console browser to chug Flash is impressive.
Flash was on a bunch of mobile platforms, just not iOS. When it became clear that Apple were going to take a sizeable chunk of the market and were never going to support it, Adobe decided to cut their losses: https://web.archive.org/web/20111116013328/http://blogs.adob...
IIRC Android gave up on Flash after iOS and before Adobe's announcement
Well back in the day, if you wanted to provide some interactive experience worth having on the web, you did it Flash.
It fits entirely to be supported on consoles.
I remember trying to browse a Flash build promo website for Transformers 2 on my PSP (what a 2009 sentence) and it wouldn't load. I was quite disappointed.
I remember the Wii U browser’s MP4 playback being surprisingly helpful. Running the `http-server` npm package, I was able to get video from my laptop to the TV in a pinch.
Adding in Handbrake, it wasn’t that bad of a setup!