Good news, Rock Band fans! We've got some juicy new details related to the upcoming Rock Band 2. Find out the platforms the game will be headed on, the number of tracks, and the general release date of the game after the jump!

Wii owners who have their consoles online have learned that correct, up-to-date content has not existed on the Wii Weather Channel from the beginning. This is in contrast with other services like the Wii News Channel, which has lived up to its billing. A recent check at the Weather Channel, however, revealed that all may not be lost after all. Find out how so after the jump.

Atari just received a warning from NASDAQ stating it may be delisted for low stock market value. Even after patching things up with FUNimation, it seems the video game company is in the red once more. Find the details at the full article.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has revealed a new gift-giving feature for the Nintendo Wii home video game console. This new feature further broadens the console's online offerings.

The new feature will let users send a Virtual Console game as a gift to others via the Wii Shopping Channel. Once the recipient accepts the gift, the shopping channel launches automatically and the download for the game commences.

Iwata also once again ruled out a price cut for their Wii home video game console. According to the Associated Press, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company was "still focusing on how to meet booming demand" so a price cut is out of the question.

Finally, Iwata revealed that the company will start selling the Wii in China next year. No sales projections were disclosed, but Iwata said that the company's "future potential there is huge".

The Associated Press reports that a shareholder revolt at Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. this week "offed nearly as many executives as virtual characters in the video game company's violent titles," and that this shareholder revolt of sorts has led to the increase of Take-Two's stock.

Strauss Zelnick, former chief executive of BMG Entertainment, is the company's new non-executive Chairman. Ben Feder, formerly a senior executive at News Corp., a global media conglomerate, is set to replace Pal Eibeler, to former CEO and president of Take-Two.

The Associated Press article then decided to give some folks who are not so pleased with the content that Take-Two has distributed some focus. The article goes on to cover the many facets of videogame violence and the problems Take-Two has with Child Advocacy groups and legislators who are displeased with the content they release.

Yes, a whole lot of quotes from CEOs of non-profit organizations, some snippets of info about Hot Coffee, and descriptions of Grand Theft Auto and Bully that portray the titles as gore fests and not environments that give players the freedom to act irreverently.

Perhaps Take-Two's woes has more to do with management than with their content. It can be recalled that Take-Two's former chairman and CEO, Ryan A. Brant, became the first chief executive to be convicted of backdating stock options. The exec pleaded guilty last February in a New York state court to first-degree falsification of business records in a deal that lets him avoid incarceration. How GTA-esque.

Video game industry analyst Tom Gardner, CEO of Alexandria, Va.-based investment company The Motley Fool, notes:

Sometimes institutions play football with small public companies, and they can inflict a lot of damage if companies don't have a large enough ownership stake to protect against institutions that squeeze out profits in the near term.

...But in this case, the institutions look quite good: You have backdated options, hidden porn, accounting issues and mismanagement. You have management that was at best incompetent and at worst dishonest.

While we can understand his sentiment, Senator Barack Obama's choice of rhetoric was a bit stale. Game Politics notes an Associated Press report that mentions his use of gaming as an equivalent to slacking.

According to the Associated Press, Obama was heard saying this at a a recent promotional rally in Austin, Texas:

Obama told the Austin crowd that they should try to recruit their friends to support his campaign. "I want you to tell them, 'It's time for you to turn off the TV and stop playing Game Boy,'" Obama said. "We've got work to do."

It obviously wasn't meant as a literal term, as the senator's been somewhat vocal in getting newer voters to go out and rock the vote (for him, presumably). He previously criticized youth culture as "watching TV, playing video games, and avoiding tough classes in school." Whether or not he wins the elections, we just want to tell him one thing though: "The new handhelds are the DS Lite and PSP. Take your pick for your next performance."

The successful game console that has everyone jumping up from the couch and waving their magic Wii wands now has the ability to replace your local news channel. And you don't even have to wait until 11.

Instead of getting your local news from your favorite news channel, Wii could give you the skinny of news from all around the world. Got friends in Asia? You could hover over Asia on the 3D Globe and see an assortment of news from the region. Among other features, the news even gets updated on-the-fly. So you can check back and find new developments.

While your local news are still closer to home, the fact that a mere video game console can provide up-to-date, on-demand news gives a new meaning to interactive media. Powered by Associated Press (or Goo for the Japanese), the Wii news channel consolidates news collected from associated sources all over the world (with pretty cryptic acronyms by the way - there's never enough combinations of letters to make you dizzy). It may be only a matter of time before the news covers your neighborhood.

So now all news buffs get to view what news they want, when they want, by a wave of a hand and a click of a button. The value of the Wii probably went up two-fold now.

Hold the presses! Wii News Channel is released for the Wii console and adds to the collection of Weather, Shop, Mii, Disc, and Photo channels. The News Channel launched January 26, 2007 and is freely available to all Wii owners.

A second version of Wii News Channel will be freely available to Europe later this year, with more exclusive European news. The News Channel provides instant news on-demand by the press of a button. The Wii's WiiConnect24 feature will ensure that news will always be updated as long as the Wii is always on.

Wii users can catch news relevant to them by navigating a 3D Globe and selecting regions where the users reside in. They can opt to view international, regional, or local news, all provided by Associated Press (except for the Japanese, that will be provided by Goo).

In order to make use of the Wii News Channel service, customers must connect the Wii to a high-speed connection as demonstrated in the manual and activate the System Update. Once the update is complete, the Wii News Channel will be already downloaded. To keep news up-to-date, the Wii must be connected to the Internet.

You can also check out Wii's official website (linked below) to see more official announcements.

Wondering how the Wii's News Channel ticker looks like? Wonder no more then, and have a look at this video from GameVideos.com. Oh, and watch out for the news from Ontario.

The Wii News Channel, which is powered by Associated Press, provides Wii owners with the top news stories happening all over the world in multiple languages. The news is displayed through an interactive map which users can navigate using the Wiimote. Users can also choose to zoom in and out of the map if they want to focus on either regional/national or international news.

Those who don't want ads cluttering up their view of the news world will be glad to know that ads are not yet in the works for the Wii News Channel. We bet they'll start popping up before Summer, though.

WNC. Yeah, what is it with news channels and three-letter abbreviations? Anyway, with Wiis everywhere turning into mommy and daddy's favorite way to start the day - no, not with a cup of coffee and Wario, but with a cup and the Associated Press-powered Wii News Channel - it seems that people (well, some people anyway) have stopped gaming to see what's new in the world. Whoa, that's a change...

Some people have even taken to capping their Wii capping the news, 24/7, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. Here's a couple - one from AMWNZ (obviously Kiwi-based), and another from technofranki, both found via Go Nintendo. Reading the comments, it seems that Nintendo needs to do a bit of tweaking to the Wii's protocols for searching news - one commenter noted that looking up the news in Athens, Greece, posted college football scores for Athens, Georgia.

Still, it is a handy interface, as the vids demo, with categories of news to pull from. Then there's the cool globe that allows you to visit the world's hotspots and find out which dictator's gonna be kneecapped next. Or the going rate for weapons-grade uranium in Georgia (no, not the Georgia on this side of the Atlantic). Or even how well Windows Vista and Lost Planet are doing. Ironic, isn't it?

 

 
More from Wii News Channel after the jump!