Why the Wii browser has Flash 7 and not Flash 8 or 9?
32 CommentsPublished April 13th, 2007 6:15 PM EDT By Daniel Goldman
Opera’s Haavard just answered on his blog the question many have been asking “Why does the Wii Opera-powered browser come with the ancient Flash 7 and not with Flash 8 or Flash 9?”
The simple answer is that it’s out of both Opera and Nintendo’s hands. If you want to run Flash outside of Windows, Linux, or Mac, you need the Flash SDK (Software Development Kit), which is made by Adobe. As a result, the Flash SDK is needed to run the Wii and Opera’s mobile browser on phones. The problem however is, Adobe hasn’t released Flash 8 or 9 on their SDK, and until they do so, there’s nothing we could do about it.
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What Opera (or Nintendo) could do about it…???…
Let Adobe know, who’s running the show… Fix a lasting deal…
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Long live Adobe!
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Thankfully its not a case of Opera being lazy, but actual development issues.
I would have thought that Opera, being so big with cross-platform browsers, would have contact and organised an arrangement with Adobe about this already.
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“What Opera (or Nintendo) could do about it…???…
Let Adobe know, who’s running the show… Fix a lasting deal…”
Who would have thought about that…
Adobe runs the show dude, it’s their product and they have shown many times that Windows/Mac (note that I say Windows/Mac and not other OSs) is what they care about. Cross-platform/devices Flash is not one of their priorities. Heck, until this year the latest version of Flash for Linux was Flash 7 and there’s no Shockwave for Linux either, go figure.
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linux is for ners
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This will matter a lot since most people visiting gaming sites from the Wii will be visiting pages with a lot of flash 8/9.
But hey, its just a matter of time, and an update. No big deal.
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The day opera comes out for PSP is the day I switch on all platforms.
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Opera? There are lots of companies that could have used a newer version of Flash. Adobe seems to flat out refuse to do it.
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somebody needs to start a petition to adobe for flash 9 on devices…
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You can get firefox on a WII but its a complicated procedure
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Its probably more difficult then you think, I believe they have some large issues going over to 64-bit too,
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how do u get firefox on wii?
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“You can get firefox on a WII but its a complicated procedure.”
That wouldn’t help, it doesn’t run on the Wii (yet), it has nothing to do with Opera. In other words, Firefox can not magicly make Flash work on a Wii, enevn though it can do a lot of magical things!
Maybe Nintendo can throw some money at Adobe, but I think this is not realy a priority for them. However, we don’t know what Nintendo, Opera or even Adobe is up to about this issue. So have patience, the future might bring some awnsers.
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Firefox is not able to go on the Wii. Ignore the troll.
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Trust me, as someone that has seen Flash Lite 2 (flash for devices) source, getting Flash 7 to work on a device is a nightmare, much less Flash 8 or 9. It’s gonna be a while.
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Hopefully those Software Dev Kits get released soon : )
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It’s probably for the same reason they don’t have a working flash for 64bit windows, linux or mac (you need to run a 32bit browser…), and they skipped flash 8 for linux (and mac?) entirely…
If Adobe doesn’t get their act together soon, I suspect there will be a viable open source flash plugin and development environment. Last I checked, the open source stuff was targeting Flash 7.
As it is, on my 64-bit machine, I have to run Flash 9 in a special 1GB 32-bit copy of linux that’s just for it. Most flash 9 sites work, but I still get “Click here to install/update Flash” every once in a while…this is the best it’s been since flash 7 for linux shipped.
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I think designers should always save webpages with backwards compatibility in mind.
Personally I try to save all my flash elements in flash 6 or 7
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Adobe has shown a very strong level of contempt for the ‘unusual’ communities out there- but they’re aware that their product is at risk due to various microsoft and open source technologies. They’re the king for now, but I think that adobe is aware that their position there is no longer guaranteed. They seem to have put increased resources into the Flash-on-linux development team, and one can hope that things will change. They have to, or flash will start to lose its relevance the same way ActiveX and VB-script (on the client) did.
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Maybe Apollo is taking up all their time.
Well non the less, it once again shows that Flash should not be used to make web pages, it should be used to enhance them. Making web pages this way, will make them work on more devices/OSes, and for people with disabilities blindness.
- ØØ -
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I find this rather amusing. I manage to browse just fine from my computer with all flash disabled (Firefox + Flashblock). The only real use for flash on the web these days is advertising and crappy band web sites.
I fail to see what the big deal is that Opera on Wii doesn’t support Flash 8 & 9. What would bother me is that it does support it.
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Adobe doesn’t care about anybody else than themselve. They do things the way they want it, how they want it, and when they want it. They don’t care about the rest. They do things like if they are the kings of the world. With Adobe, it’s Their way or the highway.
So unfortunately, don’t expect to have an SDK for Flash 9 anytime soon. You had better chances for this if it was still Macromedia behind Flash. Let’s hope for an open source version, or another standard that come outside of Adobe’s factory!
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Ever heard about Flash videos? They are used by a huge number of sites, Comothinon.
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it would be nice to atleast get flash 8 (lazy adobe)
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I like how everyone is thinking adobe had alot to do with this, but I would bet the decision that caused it not to be updated yet was made back when macromedia was in control.
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Adobe sucks, I had once to do with their customer support, and they even didn’t manage to fix their contact us form back then, let alone understanding and answering my question.
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someone needs to make an alternitive to flash. The wii browser wont run anything with flash 7 and my computer wouldnt download flash 9 from adobe’s website. They need something better to run this stuff!
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youtube and Google should write alternative FOSS plug-ins for Flash 7-9 and end this crappy situation.
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I don’t know anything about computers but here’s an idea. Could anyone make a website where the website itself would decode the flash 8-9 content into the compatible flash 7? A website/browser. Browser within a browser. Is that possible?”
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Answering my own question. Yes, i think it is possible I just came across this “website-browser” http://www.anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html after posting my previous message, but it’s a very simple browser. I guess if you had one with flash 9 installed it would work. Once again I don’t anything about computers, just using common sense. Could any of you nerds make a site browser with flash 9 so I could watch more videos on my Wii. You’ll probably get rich with that, think about it. Thanks! P.S. If you get rich please send me a check for good karma.
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I wonder if anyone did an effort to wake up ADOBE on this issue …. But maybe it even isn’t ADOBE’s fault as the biggest novelty from Flash 7 to 8 was the new highe quality (and HD) video-decoder. This was licensed from On2 Technologies. It might be that the problem still lays in the hands of On2 …
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I`m surprised more people haven’t been posting on wiis…