Opera on DS?

It's no joke.

Although it isn't available yet, Opera will be launching its DS browser in Japan on July 24th. The US release will follow sometime soon thereafter.

I keep saying how impressed I am with Nintendo's handling of their next-gen gaming consoles.

The Wii seems to have every one of its ducks in a row - from the buyer-friendly price point to its stable of launch-ready games...oh, and let's not forget the flipping Wii-mote.

With the release of the DS Lite, Nintendo unquestionably dominates the handheld market as well. They have simply done everything right when it comes to developing smart, appealing game systems and titles.

Now, to the lengthy list of accolades worth heaping on Japan's rock-solid gaming icon, add some praise for this: deliberate integration of third-party and open-source software and peripherals.

(PS: If you're lost at this point, it won't get any less nerdy from here.)

Rather than explain the story, How about I let Opera's Executive Vice President of Devices, Scott Hedrick do the work for me:

Nintendo came to Opera and requested that Opera work with them to port and optimize our browser for the DS...

Not that porting to any platform or device is easy work, but Opera has done this before and has succeeded in becoming a modular and flexible Web browser. The DS provides a unique form factor with dual screens and touch-screen technology and many of Opera’s core technologies come into play very nicely in this setting, such as Small-Screen Rendering (SSR).

Although I'm a huge fan of Firefox, it's not the only browser I use. My real affinity is for open-source software, and so I have several browsers cohabitating on my machines.

Opera is my second-favorite web surfing tool, right behind the Fox. So knowing that it will be available for my DS is excellent news.

An already secure browser, O should be even more secure when packed inside the buttoned-up DS wi-fi network. It's definitely worth keeping an eye out for.


Who read all the way to the bottom? You're a nerd!