Wii News Channel launches

As part of its strategy to attract nontraditional gamers to its latest console, Nintendo has offered a number of nontraditional features for the Wii, including Internet browsing and a Weather Channel with forecasts from around the globe. Today the third such offering arrived on the system in the form of the Wii News Channel, a feed of recent Associated Press stories and pictures delivered to the Wii via its Internet connection.

There are currently eight news sections: National News, Regional News, International News, Sports, Arts/Entertainment, Business, Science/Health, and Technology. Users can view the headlines for each topic or spin a virtual globe to see all news by city or region. Different icons indicate whether the news story can be shown by region and whether it has photos attached.

Later in the year, an updated version of the News Channel will be made available in Europe, which will show "more extensive" European news for free.