8 Ways to Sunday

Opera Software’s famously fast and standards-compliant web browser will be performing surfing duties for the users of Wii, Nintendo’s oddly-named next-generation game console. As far as I know, this will make Wii the first console with a “real” web browser built in.

With the Xbox 360 currently retailing at $300 and $400* — and the PlayStation 3 set to sell for $500 and $600* — the $250 Wii is sure to be a hit with cost-conscious gamers and cash-strapped parents. One more reason for web developers to test pages in Opera.

(Props: Digital Trends)

Updates

• 6/4/2006 @ 2:40 AM — More details on Opera’s Wii browser from WiiSpot.com
• 6/6/2006 @ 12:32 PM — Cubed3.com interviews Scott Hedrick, Opera Software’s Executive Vice President in charge of Opera for Devices, about the Wii browser. Opera’s web site has the press release about the Opera–Nintendo venture.

An anonymous gamer has used Gary’s Mod for Half-Life 2 to make a mind-boggling Rube Goldberg death trap using the game’s advanced physics system. Watch the device in action on Google Video.

You could argue that this person has way too much time on his hands, but the results are certainly impressive. My favorite HL2 fan video to date is still “A Few Good G-Men,” however.

(Props: ColdForged)

Variety reports that Microsoft is working to bring their popular video game franchise to the multiplex masses. The really tasty bit of gossip, however, is that the Redmond giant is trying to dodge the studio system:

Bestselling vidgame franchise “Halo” has taken its first major step toward the bigscreen, but without the studio system that has ruined so many of its brethren. Microsoft has quietly put the finishing touches on a million-dollar deal to hire Alex Garland to adapt the games into one movie.

That’s the most info you can get without being a Variety subscriber, which I’m not. A tantalizing tidbit, however. An article in The Seattle Times has more:

According to Variety, Microsoft is planning to develop the script on its own and take it to movie studios only after it is complete. Such a move in Hollywood is unusual for a tech company, the report said.

Microsoft likely wants to make sure that the “Halo” brand isn’t diluted, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst covering the company at Directions on Microsoft, a Kirkland-based independent research firm.

Alex Garland — the screenwriter retained by Microsoft — was the scribe behind the zombie-epidemic hit (there’s those zombies again) 28 Days.

(Props: Gamespot for the original scoop, Peter O’Kelly’s Reality Check for pointing me to the Times article)

Updates

• 11/5/2006 @ 2:10 PM — Studio backing for the Halo movie project has collapsed and all work on the movie has stopped for the moment. If this happens at all, it’s going to be a while. (via Binary Bonsai and GameSpot)

Speaking of pirates, here’s a game that Colleen might appreciate.

Johnny Liu of 1UP.com expounds on the archetypal video game characters:

There are five character types that shall be prevalent in gaming until the end of time: monkeys, ninjas, pirates, zombies, and robots. Until the day when all five are forged as one, we’ll have games that make the most of these separate necessities.

And when the day comes that a game introduces us to the zombified robotic ninja pirate monkey, I’m totally slapping down my $50 for that baby.