I love using wii speak, but my animal crossing game broke a few weeks ago, I have another copy!

It's sad but as mentioned already, this is an established Nintendo trait. They really live it up to 3rd parties to support these peripherals.

And due to Wii Speaks community nature, it's not suited to any game outside of Animal Crossing and possible NHL2K10. I found it distracting in Conduit. I'm selling Conduit and picking up NHL2k10 today so I'll see if that uses it better, at least it makes more sense since there's local multiplayer online in NHL.

Shame Brawl, Mario Kart and Strikers couldn't be patched to use it. Stupid that Excitebots didn't have it but no one bought that game anyway.

Not sure Endless Ocean's 2 use will be great either. If my swim buddy suddenly starts talking to his wife (in real life but non-existant in the game) it'll really pull you out of the experience.

The real problem that I see is Nintendo's lack of online games, period. As has been pointed out, the only game that has online but doesn't have Wii Speak since the peripheral came out is ExciteBots, and I don't really see an advantage to the peripheral for that game, either.

IMO, NSMBW should have had full online support, including Wii Speak. As somebody who thinks an excellent online mode has contributed to Mario Kart Wii's incredible sales, I think lack of online will hurt NSMBW's overall sales potential.

Wal-Mart discounts things quickly and strangely.
But John's point in the OP is quite valid. Nintendo brings things out for a single game and then lets them go away.

Mike from Morgantown

I think it's more an issue of ideology.  Nintendo's only pushing Wii Speak in it's own games that are cooperative online (Animal Crossing, Endless Ocean 2) not competitive (Excitebots).  They let 3rd parties do whatever though, as usual.