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Pornographers pondering Wii

Wednesday, January 3, 2007 | 12:34 PM ET

by Saleem Khan, CBC News Online

It was probably inevitable. As long-time industry watchers know, it's a virtual truism that with every new advancement or development in consumer technology, the pornography industry is either a leader or not far behind. The latest development: porn formatted for the Wii. (Make your own joke here.)

The new video game console includes internet connectivity and Nintendo has teamed up with Opera Software SA of Oslo, Norway, to offer a simplified version of the Opera Web browser for the Wii. [Screenshots, video] Opera also offers guidelines and tools to help people design Wii-friendly websites.

Over the holiday break, as millions of new Wii owners were unwrapping their coveted consoles, we stumbled across an item on Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog and were reminded of it today by Kotaku.

According to Opposable Thumbs, one of its readers has discovered that at least some some website operators are starting to offer porn sites designed to be used with the Wii's simplified Web browsing scheme.

Despite the Wii's parental controls, it might be enough to call into question Nintendo's family-friendly approach to the console's content and marketing, or at least raise a red flag.

But as with other technologies such as home video cassette recorders, commercial websites, streaming internet video and online photo sharing communities, porn was a pioneer. The same goes for video games, the Opposable Thumbs blog notes.

Soon after Sony released its PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld gaming device — which can also display photos, play back audio and video and let users surf the Web through a internet connection — porn peddlers quickly began offering PSP-formatted adult content.

It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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David

Markham

I'm glad this article didn't go where I thought it was going to... after all, the notable feature of the wii is that you can move around the remote control in 3 dimensions and the game system understands the movement and responds to it.

I was afraid you were going to say there were new video games which were essentially interactive pornography! (Insert your own "joystick" joke here...)

Posted January 8, 2007 12:38 PM

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