Incidentally, I have an important life lesson for you, windbane: behaving like a schoolyard bully does not work so great in real life. At best, you'll be scorned and ignored for being immature. At worst, you'll be put in prison for taking it too far and causing physical or severe psychological harm to others. Outside of the schoolyard, when it's mature adults who are the ones moderating things, acting out in a childish fashion only serves to ostracize you from the rest of the group; it sure as hell doesn't get you anything worthwhile.

You may feel that this doesn't apply to video games, because they're not real life. Video games are an escapist medium, it's true, but they are not an excuse to act like you're 12 years old again and make a total jerk of yourself just because nobody knows who you really are. Fun at others' expense is destructive entertainment, and ultimately accomplishes nothing of value for anybody save the one who's making others miserable to make himself happy.

You've clearly never used voice chat. I've had a lot of great conversations with people online. It's also essential for some games, such as any game that could have clans/guilds...you know, any game that requires teamwork. I'm glad more people don't have your attitude towards features, though, because we wouldn't have a lot of the great things we do. Every feature of anything can be abused, but the good outweighs the bad. If friends want to use voice chat, they should be able to. There is absolutely no good reason to ignore that option.

I feel sorry for you that you the only reason for voice chat is to bully people. You are sadly mistaken. Btw, your baseless, condescending attitude does nothing to help your point.

I'm trying to help you understand a very simple concept (that of others having very negative experiences with voice chat and not wanting to ever play online games with the feature again), and all I get from you is a series of rather condescending responses that display no comprehension of what I've said. Essentially, all you've said in response is "I don't think you're right because my experiences have not been like that". That is not an argument; that is an anecdote.

If it's that you don't want to actually have a discussion on this matter, then just stop replying. I won't mind, honest.

@Sky Render

I try not to use the word "simple" when I'm explaining something, it gives off the impression that I'm being snotty or that I believe the person I'm talking to is "simple" in turn of the element needing explanation; very condecending, not using it helps me also, as it's a cheap way of adding um to my thoughts and so getting rid of it is like getting rid of a bad habit similar to "um".

Over all it leads to much richer conversation, and opening of both parties minds to the others ideals and intentions.

You can't hope to change people, but you can't even hope to relate unless you understand what they let you understand. @ Wind bane That's your experience I guess, but by popular acceptance the general idea is voice chat does open a person to much more than ESRB can rate. I myself went on my friends Xbox360 for Gears/RB6V/HALO3 and on all 3 ended up hearing either total silence or racial slurs or someone just playing music for all to hear. On the PS3 it's actually much of the same but less racial slurs, why I don't know. But generally if you play with friends of course the experience is going to be better. I hope you can at least accept what I wrote as unconditional truth.

I don't understand the problem here.

One single friend code for all games
Voice chat with friends only

These two solutions are simple for Nintendo to do. They could have done it long ago. It would not have caused any issues with parents thinking their kids are going to have contact with paedophiles. But they just haven't done them.

Why not? I don't know. But this is Nintendo's problem. They have the ability to make something fantastic, but they just don't. These aren't the only examples. Why is there no system wide Wii remote calibration? The Wii remote pointing could hav ebeen so much better.

I love voice chat. Especially during Halo 3. Nothing better than a match with my buds where we are informing each other of the enemy's whereabouts. I really can't stand playing online without voice chat now. Especially pc games. Playing Battlefield on pc I can hear one person a game that has a mic and they aren't getting responses. Ridiculous. If you have a problem with someone, mute them. Easy. Never had any real problems. Maybe if someone was a little sensitive it might matter.

dib8rman: In the circumstances where you don't want to hear something, you can always choose not to use voice chat. Most games have a mute function. To have the full experience for many online games, though, voice chat is required. Of course playing with friends is better, but you can't voice chat with them, either.

Sky Render: As you can see from the 2 people above, I am not the only "anecdote" of evidence here. I think it is fairly widely accepted that voice chat is a great feature, and like many of us have said, it's a must for many online games. There is absolutely no excuse for lacking AT LEAST voice chat among people you have shared your friend code digits with. People have to use Xfire, 360, PS3, cell phones, etc. to hear each other when playing Wii games, and that's sad. As for your claim that I didn't understand what you said: you either accused me of only wanting voice chat so I could act like a 12-year-old bully, or claimed that was the only purpose for voice chat. Both of those would be wrong. I sincerely feel sorry for you that you don't understand the benefits of having voice chat. That wasn't me trying to fight with fire your condescending attitude. I apologize if it came across that way.

I wasn't agreeing with your point, actually the above your reffered is anecdotal, and neglect that friend codes are still easily disclosed over the internet, the point here is Nintendo hasn't released such technology to the public mainly because they can't figure a way to do it their way. This has been noted many times by Iwata himself, in combination with Reggie saying that Voice chat is on it's way, add this with what Iwata sais and it's clear Nintendo has come up with a method to have secure voice chat.

I for one am suprised you still argued this, and I'm certain your not viewing the whole picture but rather painting your own and not looking outside the four walls of your canvas. For certain things like proper 3rd party support on the Wii I'm not patient about, but for something as suplimental as Voice chat I can wait for perfection or inovation.

Sad to say but to refer to Sean Malstrom: Nintendo won't copy a failing model - the PS360 have copied the PC model and it proved not to work for them, as it doesn't actually have a direct effect on people who buy the system, those same people would of bought it for the HD graphics and their favorable software lineup anyway. If their going to add voice chat they're going to do it in such a way that it isn't just something else and that it is subject to adding profit for Nintendo.

(how you understand that is up to you.)

Also to expect them to do it the way you or anyone of the above request it is not what they do, they listen to the market by doing small tests then respond to a percentage of cash returns. Simply adding voice chat won't be enough to meet their standards.

Also you keep attacking Renders statement in which he was being very specific and attacking one of the many issues with voice chat by responding with, it adds to the gaming experience, can you please counter with an example a benefit of voice chat, because your general answer of 'it adds to the gaming experience' doesn't add up as a counter argument regardless of how passionate you are about it.

Really, dib8rman summed it up pretty well there. Even if there were a way for Nintendo to implement it in a way which wouldn't scare off new users, why would they? What do they stand to profit from by doing so, when the sorts of people asking for it go online with their Wiis as it is? Adding voice chat would be sustaining at best, detrimental at worst.