Move over CNN, the Associated Press is in town — at least as far as the pending Wii News Channel is concerned. When we all awake here in the States this Saturday morning, we will be greeted with news articles provided by the AP
The Wii News Channel, scheduled to debut Saturday, will primarily feature top news stories and photographs from The Associated Press. Consoles with a broadband Internet connection and the Opera Web browser will be able to access the free news channel, which will offer AP news in multiple languages. Japanese-language news will come from a separate agency. […] News will be displayed through an interactive map, which users can navigate with the Wii’s wireless controller, Kaplan said.”The beauty of it is it zooms in and out of areas of the world,” she said. “So if you really want to focus on regional news or national news versus international, you just blow up the map of the U.S.”
This Channel sounds like it will be a neat feature; something I will look at briefly in the morning while getting ready for work. The icing on the cake for me however, was this line from the half truth queen, Perrin Kaplan:
There were no immediate plans to sell advertising space, said Perrin Kaplan, vice president for marketing at Nintendo’s U.S. headquarters in Redmond.
The AP contract with Nintendo is for two years, but could last longer or even involve more multimedia, said Jane Seagrave, vice president of new media markets for the New York-based news cooperative.
Hopefully the news won’t be a day late, like the weather. Are you guys excited about this feature?
