so today I threw down my 500 Wii points for the internet channel, in anticipation of being able to watch streaming video on my tv. The wii uses opera as a browser, with flash and ajax support. Sweet!
..until I went to www.pcavote.com and saw a big box stating that express install wasn’t working correctly. Over at adobe’s website, it appeared there was no appropriate upgrade available.
Yes.. I know, had I referred to wikipedia, I would have known that the Wii browser has flash player 7, with no immediate plans for an upgrade being available.
Now I know the version penetration for the flash player: I was involved in a discussion about it just a few weeks ago when there was a flash vs flex discussion at work (flex2 requires flash player 9, whereas we publish flash to play in flash player 8). For those of you not willing to click that last link, as of September 2007, FP7 is at 99.1%, FP8 is at 98.4% in mature markets, FP9 is at 93.3%.
I’d be interested to know how many of that .7% sticking it out with FP7 are forced to 
Sure, there are APIs and developer’s guides out there for optimizing applications for the WII in general, but it’s just disappointing that as we move forward, we are still tied to supporting what should be a legacy system, despite the fact it is only being introduced now….
It’s quite depressing to see something such as the Wii, with the capabilities to be a fantastic low-cost family computing device (e-mail, web browsing, games, USB keyboard support) with such a grandma-friendly UI have such a setback.
Imagine the power of some of the more interesting Flex/Flash apps out there (the upcoming Photoshop Elements in Flex comes to mind), as well as the power of the upcoming “Moviestar” version of Flash Player (supports 1080p video… not that the Wii goes past 480p). With any luck, Adobe can flex their muscles a bit and wrangle Opera or Nintendo to support Flash Player 9.
By comparison, Flash Lite 2 supports a bit more than Flash 7 does, it memory serves. I could very well be wrong. Kinda sad to think a Nokia N series phone outdoes a Wii.