Fat lady sings: Opera free longer, but final version delayed

So, there's good news, and bad news in the Wii camp. Which do you want first? Okay, the bad news it is: the final version of the Wii Internet Channel is delayed. Although delayed in the nick of time, as it were. It was supposed to be available in late March ... and here we are in late March. No final Internet Channel sighting over here, up in the crow's nest? Negative sir, only the beta. Opera tells us that it will now be available some time in April ... although no actual date has been announced yet. Our money is on late April, it's possibly too much to hope for an Easter surprise.

Onto the good news, then: the Wii Opera browser will be available longer for everyone's favorite price ... FREE! That's right folks, don't order yet because er, you don't need to. You can just go ahead and download the free beta, and then grab the real goods when they're offered up in April. The Opera browser will cost 500 Wii points ($5 for Americans) after the free period, which was set to end in June, but will now be sliding to July. The only great unknown is the current beta browser, which was good until the end of March -- will they be extending that until the real one comes out?

[Thanks, tqt]