Flashing the Nintendo Wii
One of the most exciting pieces of news in the last few days was the release of the Opera-based browser for the Nintendo Wii. Why? Because it has Flash support. Flash 7, to be precise.
This means that Flash developers are now automatically also Wii developers if they want to be. You have to love a platform that adds to your skill set without your having to do anything! 
So, today, I started playing around with my Wii. Sorry, I'll stop now. It won't happen again.
Initially I wanted to know what resolution the Wii browser supported. There are a number of online references, like the Web design guide for Opera Browser on Wii, that state that the browser supports a resolution of 640 x 480 and that you should design for a safe area of 608 x 456. My own findings with Flash contradict this, however.
System.capabilities tells me that the system resolution on the Wii -- at least what is reported to Flash -- is 800 x 600. On a test SWF, set to 100% width and height, you get Stage dimensions of 784 x 484 with the default Macromedia HTML and 800 x 500 by hitting the SWF directly. Setting all of the margins to zero on the HTML page removes the 16x16 border and gives you the same 800 x 500 resolution.
I start to wonder whether the supported resolution is affected by the display settings in the Wii Options and decide to test it out.
Initially, I test with the TV Type set to 60Hz (480i) and the widescreen settings set to Standard (4:3). This results in the browser's controls appearing slightly cut off on my screen (46" Sony Bravia W series/1080p). Next, I try it at 50Hz (576i), again with Standard (4:3), and that gives me the same results.
Next, I change the widescreen settings to Widescreen and hit the same test page. This time, the system resolution is again reported at 800x600 but the Stage width and height defaults to 1024 x 500 (100% width, 100% height, stage set to noScale and align TL). The grid I'm drawing, however, looks all wrong. The aspect ratio is way off and there's definite antialiasing.
Update: I just tested with pixel values (the movie set to 800px by 500px) and I can confirm that this is the largest movie size that the browser will display without showing the scroll arrows. I also included a mock Wii safety image from IconFactory.com in the test file that is 800 x 500 px.
I'd love to hear what results you get with your TV set. If you have a Wii and the browser, hit the Flash resolution test file for the Nintendo Wii (http://aralbalkan.com/wiipii/arrow_wii.html) and report your results in the comments.
When leaving a comment, it would help greatly if you can mention the following information:
- TV Brand
- Standard or Hi-def
- Max res. (eg. 720p, 1080i, 1080p, etc.)
- Wii settings (4:3 or 16:9 and whether you're running at 576i, 480i or 480p)
So, does anyone else have information they'd like to share on developing for the Wii?
The Flashing the Nintendo Wii article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
Subscribe to my blog
Sandip Saini
Melatonina Melatonine
Ken Simpson
Gabriela Portilla
Clark Wilkins
Flo
It’s 800×500 here with an old (german) conventional CRT-TV (PAL/576i)
December 27th, 2006 at 12:42 am- Grundig TV
- SD (analog)
- 4:3 Wii Setting
aral
Thanks, Flo!
December 27th, 2006 at 1:41 amSatori Canton
It’s 800 x 500 here with a fairly new Mitsubishi big screen (standard NTSC)
- Mitsubishi
- Standard
- (not sure max res)
- 4:3
I hadn’t even thought about writing for the Wii in Flash. Been having too much fun playing with it to consider writing for it, but now you’ve lit the fire under me
Happy New Wii!
Satori
December 27th, 2006 at 7:15 amSatori Canton
Actually, I messed arround with the display settings on my TV (because it is a wide screen TV). But even with different display settings like 16:9, the Wii resolution was still 800 x 500. So in standard mode, it’s just stretching pixels.
December 27th, 2006 at 7:22 amKenny Bunch
Aral,
For reference I did a simple capabilities dump for the WII, PS3, and the PC then did diffs against each other. I posted the results at http://www.kennybunch.com/blogarchives/52
December 27th, 2006 at 3:07 pmaral
Thanks, Kenny, very cool!
December 27th, 2006 at 3:41 pmPhilippe
And what about the plugin performance (Wii/PS3)?
December 27th, 2006 at 4:48 pmMario Klingemann
I’m also getting 800×500 with my PAL projector. One rather unusual thing I notice is that I’m getting fractional mouse coordinates in the higher values of _xmouse/_ymouse e.g. 420.95
The only wiimote button that seems to be accessible for Flash is the “A” button - all the others do not report - also not as keypresses
December 27th, 2006 at 6:28 pmaral
Hey Mario,
Funny thing is, I’m getting those values (eg. 438.95, etc.) on my Mac too. On the Wii they appear to start at 410.95 on the x axis and 409.95 on the y axis. Anything 409 and below on the x axis and 408 and below on the y is coming up as an integer.
December 27th, 2006 at 9:39 pmMickey
How do you get rid of the white space on top?
I put the padding and margins to “0″….
Thanks.
December 28th, 2006 at 11:29 pmaral
Hi Mickey — just hacked the following on to the body tag, old-school — I’m sure I’m breaking every good HTML practice out there so a CSS-based approach would, of course, be recommended instead:
TOPMARGIN=”0″ LEFTMARGIN=”0″ MARGINWIDTH=”0″ MARGINHEIGHT=”0″ hspace=”0″ vspace=”0″
December 28th, 2006 at 11:40 pmMickey
@aral
Thanks, but on the Opera Wii browser with flash, I’m still getting a 5px top margin or so…
Any other thoughts or a link to a flash swf that has a 0 Top-margin on the Wii?
THANKS!
December 29th, 2006 at 1:08 amfriz
this is an interesting link concerning available wii remote keycodes for flash:
http://wiinintendo.net/2006/12/27/wiimote-d-pad-works-in-javascript-or-flash-games/
It seems like you can use the other keys on your remote
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:44 pmfriz
oops, I now see that website has probaly copied the info from your blog …
they do have another solution that works, and they also mention your site and give you credits. sorry for the double post.
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:55 pmDon
I have a 50″ Toshiba 720P widescreen plasma and I’m getting 1024 by 500. Does this sound weird? It seems a bit high to me but then again, from just eyeballing the screen, the horizontal length does seem to be twice that of the vertical.
January 21st, 2007 at 2:40 amaral
Hi Don,
I got that reading once but haven’t been able to reproduce it.
January 21st, 2007 at 1:50 pmRusty Mitchell
Hitachi
Hi-Def
1080i
16:9
480p
I’m getting 1024×500 consistently. I even uploaded a couple of test images (a 1024×500 and 800×500) to be sure that it was displaying 1024×500.
February 21st, 2007 at 5:05 amDhaval
Hi Aral,
Just thought I’d drop a quick note to say “Hi!”
I work at a stealth-mode startup near Stanford University in
Palo Alto, CA. What are you upto these days?
Thx,
March 17th, 2007 at 2:26 amDhaval
aral
Hi Dhaval,
Working on something really cool at the moment that I should be announcing this weekend. Otherwise keeping busy with my consulting, OSFlash, talks, etc. If you’d like to talk feel free to email me at my-first-name@this-domain.
Best of luck with your startup!
March 17th, 2007 at 9:18 amWii FanGirl
How i can install Opera browser to my wii?? Thanks!
August 4th, 2008 at 5:30 amfree wii
thanks for this…
here are the settings i have:
TV Brand - sony
October 17th, 2008 at 3:55 pmHi-def (O)
Max res 1080p
Wii settings 16:9 - 480p
habibie
nice post. This what i looking for. Thank for the info
November 29th, 2008 at 5:43 amI decide to buy wii soon after read your post
Sam Frank
Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again , Thanks.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:01 am