Nintendo has released an Operating System named ES (read translated version, original Japaneses version ) under an Open Source License. What the whole idea is behind having an OS is still unclear to me. If they were planning on having an OS for their consoles, there are other more attractive alternatives like Linux. Sony has done something on these lines by having Yellow Dog Linux run on their PS3 consoles.

The website is pretty vague and doesn’t delve too deeply into what the OS is intended for, but it’s clearly something too keep and eye on. Maybe it is just some research project. Maybe the company is still toying with the idea and wants to see what the response from the community will be, who knows.

The OS itself seems pretty interesting. The kernel seems to be written in C++ and it runs natively on x86 and QEMU. They have a port of SmallTalk programming language called Squeak. I am not sure what the intension is really, will it be used for game development on that platform? I guess there must be some way to do C++ programming as well, considering it’s x86 compatible.