E3 2008: Nintendo Announces WiiSpeak

July 15, 2008 - Nintendo has announced WiiSpeak, a community microphone that will allow multiple people in one room to use a single microphone.

WiiSpeak microphone is sold separately at an MSRP of $29.99. It will be available alongside Animal Crossing: City Folk, later this year.

I like it. It suits the Wii and I'd prefer that to a headset myself.

So it is being sold seperately. I'm not be forced to buy Animal Crossing then. Good. This will come in handy during Mario Kart.

sweetness. Now if they can just get rid of friend codes I will have no more complaints about the online haha. But this is definetly a great addition. Make life easier on 3rd parties too who have it easier to create a headset as well.

@Amp its been confirmed to work in older games?

It better. LOL. I guess I'm speaking too soon again. Me and my mouth.

This vs headset

this:
no batteries
only one needed for all in house players
no extra items to put on and off you/controller

headset:
less background noise/interference (my kids)
possibly picks us voice from player better
rest of room won't hear your other players talking/cursing (again kids)

All in all I don't mind this solution and the one for all + no batteries is awesome. So, I can deal with the minor negatives.

I'm surprised at how overlooked this thing is. I blame Nintendo for that. Still, I'm looking forward to hearing how this thing works in practice.

What i would like is for a Wiispeak channel, you go in to an online chat room with all your friends that runs in the background, so you can talk while on the Wii menu, or in any game.

I hope it works with older games too...

I thought this was shipping with AC?