Last night while you all laid your pretty little heads to sleep Nintendo launched it long awaited (maybe) Wii News Channel. The channel is fed it’s news though the AP News Wire giving you local, national and world news. Much like it’s Wii Weather Channel older sibling you can browse though news articles by spinning a 3D globe. You can also browse by section and forgo the globe view… but that’s boring!
All in all it’s a nice feature that most of you will probably stop using after about a week. Hopefully Nintendo can fetch news updates more frequently then it does for the Weather Channel….
You can read Nintendo’s official Razzmatazz after the jump.
As the options for news multiply, Nintendo is putting a simple solution for straight news right in the palm of your hand-in the form of the Wii Remoteâ„¢. The News Channel, free to Wiiâ„¢ owners, will debut on the console’s Wii Menu beginning tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 27. Using the international resources of the Associated Press, the News Channel gives you key stories in multiple categories from across the country and around the world.
“What Wii has done for video gaming, we hope it will also accomplish for news,” says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. “Just by pointing at your TV screen, you become your own interactive editor, instantly accessing the latest headline stories, whether they originate in Kansas City or Kyoto.”
“The Associated Press is always looking for innovative ways to expand its audience for news and information,” said Jane Seagrave, vice president and director of AP’s digital division. “The Wii News Channel extends our global reach even further, on yet another platform, offering our news to people who otherwise might not see it.”
The simple user interface allows Wii owners to spin a virtual globe and point to the location of a news event using the Wii Remote. Stories will be listed under headings including Business, Sports, Arts/Entertainment, Technology and Science/Health to allow users to quickly access information in the order they want. At any given time, dozens of stories might be available for each category. In the global view, stories can be grouped by region instead of category. Icons show which stories have been read, which stories are text-only and which ones come with news photos. Because Wii caters to all different ages, the interface allows users to change the size of the text. By using the “always-on” system functionality of WiiConnect24â„¢, stories will be updated frequently, even while owners are sleeping.
Powered By: Wordpress
Hosted By: MediaTemple
January 30th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Bravo Nintendo, making reading the news even simplier than opening a news paper! : )
January 30th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I love this channel the most out of all of them. The slideshow function is just too cool.