Wii goes to the Opera, for free!

For those who think they might want to do some web-surfing on their new Nintendo Wii, come November, we’re here to let you know that you’ll be able to do so with the help of web browser Opera. Even better, Opera will be a free download for Wii users through next summer.

You’ll be able to download the browser from the Wii’s shopping channel until July 2007, at which point it will go on sale for a big old question-mark number of Wii points. Lest you think you’re paying for a craptastic browser, there will be Flash and AJAX support built-in, and you’ll be able to use the Wiimote to navigate.

I’ll also take this point to correct a story that we ran a while ago, in which we claimed that first-party Wii games were region-free. Turns out that that is very much not the case: all Wii games are region-locked. Very sad, but hardly surprising.