Web Browsers on Video Game Consoles(vale.rocks) |
Web Browsers on Video Game Consoles(vale.rocks) |
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.
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).
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.
For a console browser to chug Flash is impressive.
It fits entirely to be supported on consoles.
Adding in Handbrake, it wasn’t that bad of a setup!