Adobe Flash enabling indie game development for WII
Gamespot had an article recently on the multimedia functionality of Nintendo's 'quasi-nextgen' console WII. While there are some interesting aspects, including the creation of customizable player avatars on the so-called MII channel (who is being paid for coming up with those names, anyway?) which can be shared with friends and imported into any game that supports the channel, one of the really remarkable facts IMO was buried in the middle of a paragraph at the end of the text.
Apparently, Nintendo intends to sell a proprietary version of the Opera browser (which is already being used on the DS) that allegedly will support Adobe Flash, the platform for most low-budget indie game design. A prominent indie game portal immediately announced that most webgames being archived there could probably be played with the WII controller soon and that amateur designers should begin to think about game controls "with the Wiimote in mind".
Since the Gamespot piece mentioned "Adobe Flash Animation", I would be cautious since it might be a conscious or technologically induced decision not to implement Flash Actionscript support in the Nintendo-Opera-Browser and focus on animation only to prevent rank growth of indie WII games that might poorly use and thus depreciate the new controller as a unique selling point. If not, however, this might be a clever step by Nintendo to tap the creative potential being exhibited at indie game portals already and define next-gen differently than in terms of polygons-per-second.