News Channel
 News Channel (dummy version)'s banner. | |
| Title IOS | v0: IOS9 v3: IOS13 v6: IOS15 v7: IOS31 v65280: IOS9 (HAGA) / IOS31 (HAGx) |
|---|---|
| GameID | HAGA USA: HAGE JPN: HAGJ EUR: HAGP |
The News Channel is a channel on the Wii that provides news from around the world.
It shares a very similar implementation with the Forecast Channel: both were preinstalled at the factory on retail units (except in South Korea) and received the same updates over time.
Both channels were initially released with Wii System Menu 1.0 as region-free dummy shortcuts displaying the message: "You must perform a Wii system update to use this channel." At some point, these dummy channels were updated: the banner text was modified to include "You cannot use this channel until service begins.", and the title IOS was changed from IOS9 to IOS13, although the channels still could not be launched.
The functional versions became available on December 19, 2006. After their release, the channels were updated only once more, in Wii System Menu 3.0, to slightly modify their icons to make them display their channel's content, and change the title IOS from IOS15 to IOS31.
There are also v65280 versions of these channels, which are stubs pre-installed on specific units. Unlike dummy versions, these stubs hide the channels from the Wii Menu, likely to prevent their use. According to their build tag, they were built on May 29–30, 2008, at 15:30–31 by the user wada_jumpei@WAD. Unlike other updates of the Forecast/News Channel, both the region-free title (HAFA/HAGA) and the regional variant (HAFx/HAGx) are stubbed. These two stubs are set to use different IOS versions in their TMD (respectively 9 and 31), even though they cannot be used.
Both channels relied on WiiConnect24, whose discontinuation effectively rendered them unusable. Their functionality can now be restored through WiiLink.
