6 ms·

Web Browsers on Video Game Consoles

178 points by robin_reala 4mo ago

password4321 4mo ago
I skimmed but did not see any references to browser-based jailbreaks simplifying pwning several consoles.
- Narishma 4mo ago
  It is mentioned as a reason why the recent Sony and Nintendo consoles no longer have a general purpose web browser.
Damjanski 4mo ago
feeling so nostalgic rn – totally forgot about these! ty
danbolt 4mo ago
I remember the Wii U browser’s MP4 playback being surprisingly helpful. Running the `http-server` npm package, I was able to get video from my laptop to the TV in a pinch. Adding in Handbrake, it wasn’t that bad of a setup!
- 71bw 4mo ago
  Truth be told, the Wii U gamepad is basically h.264 and Wi-Fi as well.
  - tech234a 4mo ago
    Yep, here's the documentation for the GamePad protocol: https://libdrc.org/docs/re/index.html https://libdrc.org/docs/re/index.html
lxgr 4mo ago
The browser on the Wii was amazing. I didn't use it all that often, but I was a big Opera fan back in the day, and it was amazing to see how well their engine scaled to all kinds of systems. As far as I remember, there were even some games that supported the Wiimote natively? I don't remember if this was via Flash or Javascript, but there seems to be a library for the latter: https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/wii-js https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/wii-js I unfortunately never got to use the Nintendo DS version (the DS being WEP-only was a dealbreaker for me).
- KeplerBoy 4mo ago
  I bought the NDS version back in the day and let me tell you it was not worth the 40€ of my pocket money.
  - Wowfunhappy 4mo ago
    I remember how, if you wanted to swap the top and bottom screens, it would spin and spin and spin… definitely a painful experience. I actually think it was worth the money though, at least for me, because having a pocketable device that could access the internet was so special at that time. Also, the DSi’s web browser was legitimately good. In addition to being fast enough, the zoomed out bottom screen and zoomed in top screen was great for browsing designed-for-a-desktop websites.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - mrguyorama 4mo ago
    I ended up getting that "Not really a flashcart" Datel DS flashcart, and I loaded it up with DSOrganize, a homebrew "OS" https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/DSOrganize https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/DSOrganize It had a semi functional web browser included, without the RAM expansion cart! It somehow managed to browse most simple web pages on the inbuilt RAM from a hobbyist! It also had an IRC client, and that was my introduction to IRC And Internet Radio! You could point it at an internet radio station with a special "playlist" file that had a URL, so that's how I helped feed my Technobase.fm addiction at the time, before smartphones. I could carry around my DS and listen to internet radio!
    - KeplerBoy 4mo ago
      Now Datel is a name I haven't heard in a while. Reminds me of those action replay devices which modified the console's memory to cheat. Ahh the nostalgia.
  - m-p-3 4mo ago
    yeah, I had low expectations but not that low. I ended up using it on "lite websites" to read the news while commuting to work on the free wifi.
doublerabbit 4mo ago
I am surprised how deeply rooted Macromedia flash was. For a console browser to chug Flash is impressive.
- asimovDev 4mo ago
  I remember trying to browse a Flash build promo website for Transformers 2 on my PSP (what a 2009 sentence) and it wouldn't load. I was quite disappointed.
- robin_reala 4mo ago
  Flash was on a bunch of mobile platforms, just not iOS. When it became clear that Apple were going to take a sizeable chunk of the market and were never going to support it, Adobe decided to cut their losses: https://web.archive.org/web/20111116013328/http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html https://web.archive.org/web/20111116013328/http://blogs.adob...
  - troupo 4mo ago
    IIRC Android gave up on Flash after iOS and before Adobe's announcement
- keyle 4mo ago
  Well back in the day, if you wanted to provide some interactive experience worth having on the web, you did it Flash. It fits entirely to be supported on consoles.
alhadrad 4mo ago
My first experience with porn was the Dreamcast browser.
- Uncle_Brumpus 4mo ago
  It's funny that this was my first thought, too. I am sure game console browsers were an entry point for whole generations of kids. Mine WOULD have been through the Dreamcast, but because my parents were early adopters of Broadband internet, we never had a dial-up connection to hook the modem up to. I did a bit of curious searching on the family PC, but one time I forgot to wipe the history, and the game was up. The first thing with a web browser that was "mine" was the PSP in high school, and I even had a special second memory card (512MB) that I would save things to that I'd take it out and hide it in a crevice in my bedframe when I was done.
  - luma 4mo ago
    Later in its life, the Dreamcast release the "broadband adapter", a 100mbit Ethernet replacement for the modem. Worked great, but very limited support in games. That plus a DC keyboard and mouse made me BRUTAL in quake 3... until someone worked out how to join DC games from the PC.
    - Uncle_Brumpus 4mo ago
      I actually had to go check to make sure the DC did originally have a modem before posting. I've been dabbling in Dreamcast modding the last couple of years, and the only network adapter that came to mind was the broadband one which, colored my childhood memories a bit. I remember there being a very specific reason we couldn't get the DC online, and "not having a long enough ethernet cable" definitely wasn't it.
  - taneq 4mo ago
    > I did a bit of curious searching on the family PC, but one time I forgot to wipe the history, and the game was up. Hahaha that takes me back to the time my friend got hold of a 3.5” floppy with some Playboy pics on it, and then called me in a panic because Windows had helpfully added them to the “recent files” list and he couldn’t figure out how to clear it.
CM30 4mo ago
I remember a couple of people making websites specifically for these apps. Wasn't super common, but there were definitely a few Nintendo forums and communities that were built with the 3DS browser's viewport and design in mind. And while there's nothing official, there are ways to use the built in Switch browser like a normal browser through homebrew as well. I think one setup even allows functionality the default browser doesn't support, like normal HTML video tags.
mid-kid 4mo ago
The Game Boy Color/GBA also had a web browser in the form of the Mobile Trainer GB, although it didn't allow inputting arbitrary URLs (although one can modify the DNS, it wasn't documented) and its limited subset of HTML might stretch the definition of "web browser" a little.
oldnetguy 4mo ago
If they brought up CDI and Pippin, then why leave out Commodore CDTV and CD32?
- EvanAnderson 4mo ago
  My stock CD32 doesn't have any connectivity that would support a browser. Adding an SX-1 module would make the unit a lot like an Amiga 1200 in a silly case w/ a CD-ROM drive, but you'd be limited to serial connectivity and SLIP/PPP (since there's no PCMCIA slot-- the typical method of adding Ethernet connectivity to an A1200). I didn't have a CDTV so I can't comment on the hardware specifics. If I remember right it's an Amiga 500 (or 500+?) in a funny case w/ a CD-ROM and would suffer from the same lack of connectivity as the CD32.
popupeyecare 4mo ago
I thought the switch had a browser for a little bit. Am I mistaken?
- nosrepa 4mo ago
  It technically has one, but the only way to use it was to tap on some various links until you managed to get to a Google search page. It was never intended for actual use outside of Nintendo's curated pages.
RedMagicBox 4mo ago
[dead]
cowsup 4mo ago
I remember poking around at the Wii U browser. Nintendo had examples of fetching the current state of buttons, analog sticks, and the touch screen to monitor for input. While cool on paper, there wasn't a preventDefault() solution. So you could make a simple game where a sprite could move around and respond to "A," but if you press B, the browser would try to go Back a page. As the article mentions, the shoulder buttons activated a Gyro-based scroll mode (which wasn't great). "B" would go Back a page, Y would close/open the "curtain" on the TV, X would open the URL bar (thus showing the software keyboard and taking over all inputs), and Start/Select also did something, although I've since forgotten what. So, although all button inputs were present, almost all of them also did something on the browser level, so nothing exciting ever came of it.
rohitsriram 4mo ago
[flagged]
mattcasmith 4mo ago
I was amazed recently by how locked down the hidden PlayStation 5 browser is. You can’t access it as an app through the dashboard, but it appears if you click a URL from a message. So people were sending themselves “google[.]com”, clicking, and enjoying web access. But it seems Sony have even clamped down on that. I sent a message to myself recently, the link wasn’t clickable, and I got a message to say my PlayStation Network account had received a warning and could be suspended if I did it again!
- Wowfunhappy 4mo ago
  > I got a message to say my PlayStation Network account had received a warning and could be suspended if I did it again! What?!? Really? Did they cite what rule you had violated?
  - mattcasmith 4mo ago
    “Sharing malicious URLs, including those that may harm another player.” The URL was google[.]com.
    - coretx 4mo ago
      It's still a wise idea to take it seriously. Many years ago, a then 17 y/o old ( German ) friend of mine did mitm on his own console in order to replace a video stream in ps home, recorded it for youtube/laughs. Not much later he was SWATed by the german police as if he was some kind of terrorist. His parents got a heart attack. Next he received financial death threats from a ultra expensive UK based law firm send by Sony.
- 7777332215 4mo ago
  They are used to exploit known vulns to get arbitrary read write, calls. For cheating. Both freebsd kernel exploits and browser exploits.
  - embedding-shape 4mo ago
kotaKat 4mo ago
I'm actually frustrated we lost web browser access on gaming consoles, especially in the era of people calling for technical support to their internet providers for "it's too slow" and we can't run a proper speedtest to the world from the console to figure out if it's the gaming provider or the Internet connection... Throw some of us in support a bone, will ya?
regus 4mo ago
I used to use my Dreamcast to browse the web. I had bought the keyboard and mouse peripherals to play Quake 3, and they worked with the browser. Back then I would use a variety of free dial up internet providers. Once the free trial ran out I would have to find another. This was in addition to the Internet that my parents were paying for.
- pipes 4mo ago
  Yep I used the Dreamcast web browser too. 33k moden in pal regions Vs USA which had 56k. I didn't even have a keyboard or mouse.
cubefox 4mo ago
This was a fantastic article!
- OuterVale 4mo ago
  Author here. I recognise you from LW. Glad you enjoyed it!
flobosg 4mo ago
The Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (64DD) had the Randnet Browser.
robin_reala 4mo ago
I was chatting to the author and it turned out that it’s not common knowledge that Dreamkey supported the Dreamcast light gun. You used the d-pad on the back to scroll, then shot links to navigate. I think this interaction method deserves a resurrection!
- toast0 4mo ago
  That's pretty good, but what about with the fishing controller?
  - robin_reala 4mo ago
    I definitely remember trying it, but can’t remember what the outcome was. I went through a phase of trying to play various games with controllers they weren’t designed for.
codingjoe 4mo ago
Browsers on consoles and resellable game media... Those were the days ...
xacky 4mo ago
There was also the various attempts at TV web browsers back in the CRT era and also that some modern smart TVs ship an outdated Chromium build that doesn't work right.
baumschubser 4mo ago
Through this article, I guess I am one of today's lucky 10k to learn about anchor links to text like https://vale.rocks/posts/game-console-browsers#:~:text=SurfEZ https://vale.rocks/posts/game-console-browsers#:~:text=SurfE...
- hilariously 4mo ago
  It's only a few years old and cross browser support hasn't been amazing until lately so most people do not know about it at all.
  - tantalor 4mo ago
    https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_elements_a_text_fragments https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_elements_a_text_fragments First support was Chrome 80 (Feb 2020) and Opera 67 (Mar 2020). Safari picked it up in 2022. Firefox in 2024.
teiji-tango 4mo ago
[flagged]
Dwedit 4mo ago
Sega Channel had a web browser, but it never got released. Page rendering was done on another computer, and converted to image data so the Genesis could view it.
uberman 4mo ago
I am frustrated that my PS5 lacks a browser now. It seems crazy that I have a computer today that does not have a browser when there are computers that are just browsers. We seem to have taken a step back here.
- DanielHB 4mo ago
  PS5 supports keyboard and mouse, there is no reason why it can't be a browserbox...
  - Aefiam 4mo ago
    I think the reason is that other consoles were jailbroken because of their browser, so now sony doesnt include it.
- MYEUHD 4mo ago
  The PS5 does have a browser, used for the "User Guide" which can be opened from the settings. If you change the PS5's DNS server in network settings, you can make the user guide open Google or Duckduckgo, from which you can browse to anywhere you want.
- jwitthuhn 4mo ago
  Same for switch 1/2. it even has a browser built-in so you can log in to wifi captive portals but you can't access it through any normal means.
PetitPrince 4mo ago
As mentioned with other comment, web browsers on console were often a popular and easy way to jailbreak your console and install custom firmwares, etc. The 3DS one was bonkers, and I think you could directly download games from Nintendo servers without verification?
ForHackernews 4mo ago
Surprised to see no mention of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game.com a terrible portable handheld that offered a 14.4 kbit/s modem cartridge.
- rocktronica 4mo ago
  Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of too. It came out in 1997 and predates all the Game Boy stuff. IIRC there was a "Game Boy don't TOUCH the net!" marketing campaign but I can't seem to find find it now. The commercial is a fun nostalgia trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ON6wxHtUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ON6wxHtUE Even if you got the extra modem gear, tho, the browser was text-only. I doubt many kids got it; I did not. It was ambitious of Tiger (a movie-tie-in LCD game company) to try to rival the big dogs, and it makes sense but is a shame it couldn't. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.
jayd16 4mo ago
It's kind of funny that the entire purpose of a browser is to protect the user machine from arbitrary code on the internet and also it's one of the main attack vectors on a console.
reaperducer 4mo ago
PSP had an excellent browser. I tired to use it a few months ago, and it won't connect to any current wifi networks. Which is a shame, because the PSP also had an excellent RSS reader. These days I could see me using it as a dedicated RSS device.
steezeburger 4mo ago
Before the PSP had a legit browser, you could get online by exploiting Wipeout Pure's update or dlc d/l mechanism. https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/the-new-psp-web-browser-hack.17193/ https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/the-new-psp-web-bro...
lanycrost 4mo ago
SteamOS is the best thing which happen in gaming for last year. I love to play and experiment with the extensions and modes which is mostly not possible with other consoles without jailbreaks and patches.
Lammy 4mo ago
> and in 2000, [Dreamcast USA, Planetweb] Web Browser 2.0 released with better JavaScript support and support for Macromedia Flash. It also added support for uploading and downloading Dreamcast save games, downloading and playing MP3s, and included a full copy of the puzzle game Sega Swirl. There was a time in my life where this was the only web browser I had access to at a certain physical location, and I used it constantly along with the E-mail and IRC components. It was cool that the whole package of WWW+Mail+IRC was small enough (~10MiB in its final version) that it could come on other discs without being a space burden. I had a 9/99 Dreamcast that came with the 1.0 Planetweb originally, and it was great to get a fresh version on the Official Dreamcast Magazine disc every few months. Article also fails to mention that a ton of games came with the same browser built-in, like there would be a main menu item to access the game's official website that would pop open the bundled Planetweb and dial using the globally saved connection settings. Gotta get your Y2K New Years Sonic Adventure DLC! https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Adventure_Downloadable_Events https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Adventure_Downloadable_Eve... I specifically 'member lusting after the Power Mac G4 and G4 Cube in the Apple online store via Dreamcast browser in 2000 lol
- drooopy 4mo ago
  Same! My PC broke down and I couldn't afford to repair it for several months. Yet I didn't miss it much as I had a Dreamcast with a keyboard and mouse. That web browser became one of my most used apps of all time. Good times!
pseudosavant 4mo ago
Kind of surprised that the current Chromium-based Edge gets no attention other than being mentioned. It is basically the same as the desktop Edge. Easily the most capable browser a console has ever had. It has support for things like the gamepad API, wasm, etc. You can do things like run emulators via RetroArch web using your gamepad properly. It's video support includes MP4/MKV with H264+AAC/AC3/MP3. I've used it to stream local movie files using just a static HTTP server and my video player app. https://web.libretro.com/ https://web.libretro.com/ https://github.com/pseudosavant/player.html https://github.com/pseudosavant/player.html
tech234a 4mo ago
Web browsers on game consoles have also been easy entrypoints for modding systems without using additional hardware. For example, the Wii U browser has been the primary entrypoint for modding the Wii U for much of the console's lifespan [1] [2]. And the original Wii had some browser-based exploits as well later in its lifespan. For example, FlashHax [3], a 2017 exploit for the Flash player in the Wii Internet Channel, and str2hax [4], a 2018 exploit which took advantage of the fact that the EULA was HTML loaded over HTTP. I believe the exploits were primarily used to distribute a simple patcher that would change the server address for online play in games to point to Wiimmfi which was a replacement for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection [5] [6]. Most other homebrew tools required an SD card, and most other entrypoints used an SD card as well. [1]: https://wiiu.hacks.guide/aroma/browser-exploit.html https://wiiu.hacks.guide/aroma/browser-exploit.html [2]: https://chadsoft.co.uk/install-guide/#wiiu_55 https://chadsoft.co.uk/install-guide/#wiiu_55 [3]: https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-free-homebrew-entry-point-flashhax.491674/ https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-free-homebrew-entry-point-fl... [4]: https://gbatemp.net/threads/a-channel-less-sd-less-entry-point-str2hax.523210/ https://gbatemp.net/threads/a-channel-less-sd-less-entry-poi... [5]: https://wiimmfi.de/patcher/flashhax https://wiimmfi.de/patcher/flashhax [6]: https://wiimmfi.de/patcher/str2hax https://wiimmfi.de/patcher/str2hax

178 points by robin_reala 4mo ago

password4321 4mo ago

I skimmed but did not see any references to browser-based jailbreaks simplifying pwning several consoles.

Narishma 4mo ago
It is mentioned as a reason why the recent Sony and Nintendo consoles no longer have a general purpose web browser.

Damjanski 4mo ago

feeling so nostalgic rn – totally forgot about these! ty

danbolt 4mo ago

I remember the Wii U browser’s MP4 playback being surprisingly helpful. Running the `http-server` npm package, I was able to get video from my laptop to the TV in a pinch. Adding in Handbrake, it wasn’t that bad of a setup!

71bw 4mo ago
Truth be told, the Wii U gamepad is basically h.264 and Wi-Fi as well.
- tech234a 4mo ago
  Yep, here's the documentation for the GamePad protocol: https://libdrc.org/docs/re/index.html https://libdrc.org/docs/re/index.html

lxgr 4mo ago

The browser on the Wii was amazing. I didn't use it all that often, but I was a big Opera fan back in the day, and it was amazing to see how well their engine scaled to all kinds of systems. As far as I remember, there were even some games that supported the Wiimote natively? I don't remember if this was via Flash or Javascript, but there seems to be a library for the latter: https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/wii-js https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/wii-js I unfortunately never got to use the Nintendo DS version (the DS being WEP-only was a dealbreaker for me).

KeplerBoy 4mo ago
I bought the NDS version back in the day and let me tell you it was not worth the 40€ of my pocket money.
- Wowfunhappy 4mo ago
  I remember how, if you wanted to swap the top and bottom screens, it would spin and spin and spin… definitely a painful experience. I actually think it was worth the money though, at least for me, because having a pocketable device that could access the internet was so special at that time. Also, the DSi’s web browser was legitimately good. In addition to being fast enough, the zoomed out bottom screen and zoomed in top screen was great for browsing designed-for-a-desktop websites.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- mrguyorama 4mo ago
  I ended up getting that "Not really a flashcart" Datel DS flashcart, and I loaded it up with DSOrganize, a homebrew "OS" https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/DSOrganize https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/DSOrganize It had a semi functional web browser included, without the RAM expansion cart! It somehow managed to browse most simple web pages on the inbuilt RAM from a hobbyist! It also had an IRC client, and that was my introduction to IRC And Internet Radio! You could point it at an internet radio station with a special "playlist" file that had a URL, so that's how I helped feed my Technobase.fm addiction at the time, before smartphones. I could carry around my DS and listen to internet radio!
  - KeplerBoy 4mo ago
    Now Datel is a name I haven't heard in a while. Reminds me of those action replay devices which modified the console's memory to cheat. Ahh the nostalgia.
- m-p-3 4mo ago
  yeah, I had low expectations but not that low. I ended up using it on "lite websites" to read the news while commuting to work on the free wifi.

doublerabbit 4mo ago

I am surprised how deeply rooted Macromedia flash was. For a console browser to chug Flash is impressive.

asimovDev 4mo ago
I remember trying to browse a Flash build promo website for Transformers 2 on my PSP (what a 2009 sentence) and it wouldn't load. I was quite disappointed.
robin_reala 4mo ago
Flash was on a bunch of mobile platforms, just not iOS. When it became clear that Apple were going to take a sizeable chunk of the market and were never going to support it, Adobe decided to cut their losses: https://web.archive.org/web/20111116013328/http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html https://web.archive.org/web/20111116013328/http://blogs.adob...
- troupo 4mo ago
  IIRC Android gave up on Flash after iOS and before Adobe's announcement
keyle 4mo ago
Well back in the day, if you wanted to provide some interactive experience worth having on the web, you did it Flash. It fits entirely to be supported on consoles.

alhadrad 4mo ago

My first experience with porn was the Dreamcast browser.

Uncle_Brumpus 4mo ago
It's funny that this was my first thought, too. I am sure game console browsers were an entry point for whole generations of kids. Mine WOULD have been through the Dreamcast, but because my parents were early adopters of Broadband internet, we never had a dial-up connection to hook the modem up to. I did a bit of curious searching on the family PC, but one time I forgot to wipe the history, and the game was up. The first thing with a web browser that was "mine" was the PSP in high school, and I even had a special second memory card (512MB) that I would save things to that I'd take it out and hide it in a crevice in my bedframe when I was done.
- luma 4mo ago
  Later in its life, the Dreamcast release the "broadband adapter", a 100mbit Ethernet replacement for the modem. Worked great, but very limited support in games. That plus a DC keyboard and mouse made me BRUTAL in quake 3... until someone worked out how to join DC games from the PC.
  - Uncle_Brumpus 4mo ago
    I actually had to go check to make sure the DC did originally have a modem before posting. I've been dabbling in Dreamcast modding the last couple of years, and the only network adapter that came to mind was the broadband one which, colored my childhood memories a bit. I remember there being a very specific reason we couldn't get the DC online, and "not having a long enough ethernet cable" definitely wasn't it.
- taneq 4mo ago
  > I did a bit of curious searching on the family PC, but one time I forgot to wipe the history, and the game was up. Hahaha that takes me back to the time my friend got hold of a 3.5” floppy with some Playboy pics on it, and then called me in a panic because Windows had helpfully added them to the “recent files” list and he couldn’t figure out how to clear it.

CM30 4mo ago

I remember a couple of people making websites specifically for these apps. Wasn't super common, but there were definitely a few Nintendo forums and communities that were built with the 3DS browser's viewport and design in mind. And while there's nothing official, there are ways to use the built in Switch browser like a normal browser through homebrew as well. I think one setup even allows functionality the default browser doesn't support, like normal HTML video tags.

mid-kid 4mo ago

The Game Boy Color/GBA also had a web browser in the form of the Mobile Trainer GB, although it didn't allow inputting arbitrary URLs (although one can modify the DNS, it wasn't documented) and its limited subset of HTML might stretch the definition of "web browser" a little.

oldnetguy 4mo ago

If they brought up CDI and Pippin, then why leave out Commodore CDTV and CD32?

EvanAnderson 4mo ago
My stock CD32 doesn't have any connectivity that would support a browser. Adding an SX-1 module would make the unit a lot like an Amiga 1200 in a silly case w/ a CD-ROM drive, but you'd be limited to serial connectivity and SLIP/PPP (since there's no PCMCIA slot-- the typical method of adding Ethernet connectivity to an A1200). I didn't have a CDTV so I can't comment on the hardware specifics. If I remember right it's an Amiga 500 (or 500+?) in a funny case w/ a CD-ROM and would suffer from the same lack of connectivity as the CD32.

popupeyecare 4mo ago

I thought the switch had a browser for a little bit. Am I mistaken?

nosrepa 4mo ago
It technically has one, but the only way to use it was to tap on some various links until you managed to get to a Google search page. It was never intended for actual use outside of Nintendo's curated pages.

RedMagicBox 4mo ago

[dead]

cowsup 4mo ago

I remember poking around at the Wii U browser. Nintendo had examples of fetching the current state of buttons, analog sticks, and the touch screen to monitor for input. While cool on paper, there wasn't a preventDefault() solution. So you could make a simple game where a sprite could move around and respond to "A," but if you press B, the browser would try to go Back a page. As the article mentions, the shoulder buttons activated a Gyro-based scroll mode (which wasn't great). "B" would go Back a page, Y would close/open the "curtain" on the TV, X would open the URL bar (thus showing the software keyboard and taking over all inputs), and Start/Select also did something, although I've since forgotten what. So, although all button inputs were present, almost all of them also did something on the browser level, so nothing exciting ever came of it.

rohitsriram 4mo ago

[flagged]

mattcasmith 4mo ago

I was amazed recently by how locked down the hidden PlayStation 5 browser is. You can’t access it as an app through the dashboard, but it appears if you click a URL from a message. So people were sending themselves “google[.]com”, clicking, and enjoying web access. But it seems Sony have even clamped down on that. I sent a message to myself recently, the link wasn’t clickable, and I got a message to say my PlayStation Network account had received a warning and could be suspended if I did it again!

Wowfunhappy 4mo ago
> I got a message to say my PlayStation Network account had received a warning and could be suspended if I did it again! What?!? Really? Did they cite what rule you had violated?
- mattcasmith 4mo ago
  “Sharing malicious URLs, including those that may harm another player.” The URL was google[.]com.
  - coretx 4mo ago
    It's still a wise idea to take it seriously. Many years ago, a then 17 y/o old ( German ) friend of mine did mitm on his own console in order to replace a video stream in ps home, recorded it for youtube/laughs. Not much later he was SWATed by the german police as if he was some kind of terrorist. His parents got a heart attack. Next he received financial death threats from a ultra expensive UK based law firm send by Sony.
7777332215 4mo ago
They are used to exploit known vulns to get arbitrary read write, calls. For cheating. Both freebsd kernel exploits and browser exploits.
- embedding-shape 4mo ago

kotaKat 4mo ago

I'm actually frustrated we lost web browser access on gaming consoles, especially in the era of people calling for technical support to their internet providers for "it's too slow" and we can't run a proper speedtest to the world from the console to figure out if it's the gaming provider or the Internet connection... Throw some of us in support a bone, will ya?

regus 4mo ago

I used to use my Dreamcast to browse the web. I had bought the keyboard and mouse peripherals to play Quake 3, and they worked with the browser. Back then I would use a variety of free dial up internet providers. Once the free trial ran out I would have to find another. This was in addition to the Internet that my parents were paying for.

pipes 4mo ago
Yep I used the Dreamcast web browser too. 33k moden in pal regions Vs USA which had 56k. I didn't even have a keyboard or mouse.

cubefox 4mo ago

This was a fantastic article!

OuterVale 4mo ago
Author here. I recognise you from LW. Glad you enjoyed it!

flobosg 4mo ago

The Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (64DD) had the Randnet Browser.

robin_reala 4mo ago

I was chatting to the author and it turned out that it’s not common knowledge that Dreamkey supported the Dreamcast light gun. You used the d-pad on the back to scroll, then shot links to navigate. I think this interaction method deserves a resurrection!

toast0 4mo ago
That's pretty good, but what about with the fishing controller?
- robin_reala 4mo ago
  I definitely remember trying it, but can’t remember what the outcome was. I went through a phase of trying to play various games with controllers they weren’t designed for.

codingjoe 4mo ago

Browsers on consoles and resellable game media... Those were the days ...

xacky 4mo ago

There was also the various attempts at TV web browsers back in the CRT era and also that some modern smart TVs ship an outdated Chromium build that doesn't work right.

baumschubser 4mo ago

Through this article, I guess I am one of today's lucky 10k to learn about anchor links to text like https://vale.rocks/posts/game-console-browsers#:~:text=SurfEZ https://vale.rocks/posts/game-console-browsers#:~:text=SurfE...

hilariously 4mo ago
It's only a few years old and cross browser support hasn't been amazing until lately so most people do not know about it at all.
- tantalor 4mo ago
  https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_elements_a_text_fragments https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_elements_a_text_fragments First support was Chrome 80 (Feb 2020) and Opera 67 (Mar 2020). Safari picked it up in 2022. Firefox in 2024.

teiji-tango 4mo ago

[flagged]

Dwedit 4mo ago

Sega Channel had a web browser, but it never got released. Page rendering was done on another computer, and converted to image data so the Genesis could view it.

uberman 4mo ago

I am frustrated that my PS5 lacks a browser now. It seems crazy that I have a computer today that does not have a browser when there are computers that are just browsers. We seem to have taken a step back here.

DanielHB 4mo ago
PS5 supports keyboard and mouse, there is no reason why it can't be a browserbox...
- Aefiam 4mo ago
  I think the reason is that other consoles were jailbroken because of their browser, so now sony doesnt include it.
MYEUHD 4mo ago
The PS5 does have a browser, used for the "User Guide" which can be opened from the settings. If you change the PS5's DNS server in network settings, you can make the user guide open Google or Duckduckgo, from which you can browse to anywhere you want.
jwitthuhn 4mo ago
Same for switch 1/2. it even has a browser built-in so you can log in to wifi captive portals but you can't access it through any normal means.

PetitPrince 4mo ago

As mentioned with other comment, web browsers on console were often a popular and easy way to jailbreak your console and install custom firmwares, etc. The 3DS one was bonkers, and I think you could directly download games from Nintendo servers without verification?

ForHackernews 4mo ago

Surprised to see no mention of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game.com a terrible portable handheld that offered a 14.4 kbit/s modem cartridge.

rocktronica 4mo ago
Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of too. It came out in 1997 and predates all the Game Boy stuff. IIRC there was a "Game Boy don't TOUCH the net!" marketing campaign but I can't seem to find find it now. The commercial is a fun nostalgia trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ON6wxHtUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ON6wxHtUE Even if you got the extra modem gear, tho, the browser was text-only. I doubt many kids got it; I did not. It was ambitious of Tiger (a movie-tie-in LCD game company) to try to rival the big dogs, and it makes sense but is a shame it couldn't. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.

jayd16 4mo ago

It's kind of funny that the entire purpose of a browser is to protect the user machine from arbitrary code on the internet and also it's one of the main attack vectors on a console.

reaperducer 4mo ago

PSP had an excellent browser. I tired to use it a few months ago, and it won't connect to any current wifi networks. Which is a shame, because the PSP also had an excellent RSS reader. These days I could see me using it as a dedicated RSS device.

steezeburger 4mo ago

Before the PSP had a legit browser, you could get online by exploiting Wipeout Pure's update or dlc d/l mechanism. https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/the-new-psp-web-browser-hack.17193/ https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/the-new-psp-web-bro...

lanycrost 4mo ago

SteamOS is the best thing which happen in gaming for last year. I love to play and experiment with the extensions and modes which is mostly not possible with other consoles without jailbreaks and patches.

Lammy 4mo ago

> and in 2000, [Dreamcast USA, Planetweb] Web Browser 2.0 released with better JavaScript support and support for Macromedia Flash. It also added support for uploading and downloading Dreamcast save games, downloading and playing MP3s, and included a full copy of the puzzle game Sega Swirl. There was a time in my life where this was the only web browser I had access to at a certain physical location, and I used it constantly along with the E-mail and IRC components. It was cool that the whole package of WWW+Mail+IRC was small enough (~10MiB in its final version) that it could come on other discs without being a space burden. I had a 9/99 Dreamcast that came with the 1.0 Planetweb originally, and it was great to get a fresh version on the Official Dreamcast Magazine disc every few months. Article also fails to mention that a ton of games came with the same browser built-in, like there would be a main menu item to access the game's official website that would pop open the bundled Planetweb and dial using the globally saved connection settings. Gotta get your Y2K New Years Sonic Adventure DLC! https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Adventure_Downloadable_Events https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Adventure_Downloadable_Eve... I specifically 'member lusting after the Power Mac G4 and G4 Cube in the Apple online store via Dreamcast browser in 2000 lol

drooopy 4mo ago
Same! My PC broke down and I couldn't afford to repair it for several months. Yet I didn't miss it much as I had a Dreamcast with a keyboard and mouse. That web browser became one of my most used apps of all time. Good times!

pseudosavant 4mo ago

Kind of surprised that the current Chromium-based Edge gets no attention other than being mentioned. It is basically the same as the desktop Edge. Easily the most capable browser a console has ever had. It has support for things like the gamepad API, wasm, etc. You can do things like run emulators via RetroArch web using your gamepad properly. It's video support includes MP4/MKV with H264+AAC/AC3/MP3. I've used it to stream local movie files using just a static HTTP server and my video player app. https://web.libretro.com/ https://web.libretro.com/ https://github.com/pseudosavant/player.html https://github.com/pseudosavant/player.html

tech234a 4mo ago

Web browsers on game consoles have also been easy entrypoints for modding systems without using additional hardware. For example, the Wii U browser has been the primary entrypoint for modding the Wii U for much of the console's lifespan [1] [2]. And the original Wii had some browser-based exploits as well later in its lifespan. For example, FlashHax [3], a 2017 exploit for the Flash player in the Wii Internet Channel, and str2hax [4], a 2018 exploit which took advantage of the fact that the EULA was HTML loaded over HTTP. I believe the exploits were primarily used to distribute a simple patcher that would change the server address for online play in games to point to Wiimmfi which was a replacement for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection [5] [6]. Most other homebrew tools required an SD card, and most other entrypoints used an SD card as well. [1]: https://wiiu.hacks.guide/aroma/browser-exploit.html https://wiiu.hacks.guide/aroma/browser-exploit.html [2]: https://chadsoft.co.uk/install-guide/#wiiu_55 https://chadsoft.co.uk/install-guide/#wiiu_55 [3]: https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-free-homebrew-entry-point-flashhax.491674/ https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-free-homebrew-entry-point-fl... [4]: https://gbatemp.net/threads/a-channel-less-sd-less-entry-point-str2hax.523210/ https://gbatemp.net/threads/a-channel-less-sd-less-entry-poi... [5]: https://wiimmfi.de/patcher/flashhax https://wiimmfi.de/patcher/flashhax [6]: https://wiimmfi.de/patcher/str2hax https://wiimmfi.de/patcher/str2hax