The closest thing we had to seeing the Wii News Channel was the Japanese intro video released a couple of days ago. Well, all that is about to change right now as we just received word that the said channel will finally debut this coming Saturday and will be powered by The Associated Press.

Accordingly, AP will be providing Wii users with the top news stories and photographs in multiple languages. Of course, we don't have to tell you that you will be needing a broadband Internet connection as well as the Opera Web browser to use this service.

Whoa! Hold it right there. We thought - based from previous information and images - that the said channel wouldn't be needing Opera. We checked this with other sources and all of them are saying the same thing. Don't worry as we will continue to look for info and update you on this one. At any rate, Nintendo of America VP for Marketing Perrin Kaplan is more than excited with this development:

There were no immediate plans to sell advertising space. News will be displayed through an interactive map, which users can navigate with the Wii's wireless controller. The beauty of it is it zooms in and out of areas of the world. 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.