While checking out Nintendo's first-party games at my appointment, I had a chance to check out a PR person playing Animal Crossing: City Folk on the Wii with... well, with Mario and Luigi. Yes, the characters looked like Mario and Luigi, and, in a fun twist, the company had Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario, spirited away in a back room interacting with whoever was playing. Hearing Mario greet you as you walk into your appointment is a little jarring, to say the least.
All this voice chat was happening courtesy of the USB "Wii Speak" microphone, placed on top of the sensor bar of the demo Wii. What was impressive was that, in a loud room filled with the sounds of many people enjoying their demos, the speaker was able to pick up my voice from around ten feet away as I talked to Mario in a normal speaking voice. I had a comfortable conversation with Martinet, and we had no problems hearing each other or understanding what the other person was saying, even in these less-than-ideal circumstances. In other words, the Wii Speak speaker is a pretty nifty piece of tech.
The design isn't final, and right now it simply rests on top of the television or sensor bar, but the ability for the microphone to pick out voices amidst so much background noise got my attention. This might not be the gimmick it first appeared to be.
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As usual, it sounds like another qaulity product from Nintendo. I hope the libraries for this are very simple so games start to use this right away. Here's also hoping for some sort of backwards compatibility. Please let it work on Mario Kart....please....
