As we all know, many Wii online games do not have voice chat. Some take this as a great insult. Others don't really care.

I, for one, pretty much don't care either way. Voice chat in games like Mario Kart or Brawl would just turn into a swearing-fest anyway, so I would think "why bother, I know they are swearing at me when I release this blue shell, just like I swear everything I go around a turn and die." But in games like Medal of Honor, with up to 15 team mates on the battlefield, it can be very difficult to coordinate attacks or anything of that sort without some sort of voice chat. The in-game commands help, but the developers forgot to add any sort of visual clue to where the person is who is talking (otherwise the wouldn't be too big of a need for voice chat).

But even still, some people would like to voice chat in any and every game. But how to do this?

With the release of Animal Crossing, Nintendo released their "WiiSpeak" peripheral, which also has it's own channel, know as the "WiiSpeak Channel." This channel lets you chat with friends through WiiSpeak. I'm not sure of all the technicalities, since I have not used it, but I would suppose you could have multiple people all chatting together (much like a conference call or 3-way call), or at the very least this feature could be added.

Now, I have no clue whether this would actually be possible, though I very highly doubt that if it could work, that Nintendo would ever bother to do so anyway. What I was thinking Nintendo could do to add voice chat to all games released, would be to allow this "WiiSpeak Channel" to run "in the background," though with fewer features or whatnot. A little editing would be needed, of course, but I think it could work if done right. At the very least you could turn it on for friends while playing in Mario Kart for instance.

But like I said, Nintendo won't bother doing it. Perhaps some company could make a program that does it and sell it. Pephaps hackers could do it. Or maybe it's just not possible. Not that I care a lot, since hopefully from now on games (like The Conduit) will just have it for those who do care about it. What do you guys think?

It would seem a neat idea. However, there is a limit of 4 people being able to talk at the same time to each other on the WiiSpeak channel. How would this limitation work for a Mario Kart 12 player online game?

I definately agree that with MoH:Heroes, its almost impossible to get any ressemblance of team cooperation going without vocal communication.  The pre-made commands are absolutely useless, because as you said..you have no idea where the person saying it is in relation to yourself or any other member of the team.  It ultimately just turns into mindless spam and I ignore it altogether.

Unfortunately its a small black mark on an otherwise great and rediculously fun/addictive game.

What I have pondered, is that because EA runs their own server for MoH...if they have a way to retrofit wiispeak to teh server and into the game.  Unfortunately, its probably something that would have to be programmed into the game disc itself during devpt...but I don't know anything on how that stuff works.

TBH, I'm rather glad there isnt any smack talk going on in kart and brawl.  The kart online is superb btw.

at any rate...heres to hoping more games utilize the new option for communications through the wiispeak accessory.  Especially team oriented games such as MoH or the Conduit.

- kw

RAM limitations, sadly. They could have a capability to launch games directly from Wii Speak Channel that could be patched in, but i don't think the Wii is capable of utilizing a function that is totally separate from the game