E308: WiiSpeak brings yet another power brick to the table?

by David Hinkle { Jul 15th 2008 at 6:30PM }

When the WiiSpeak peripheral was unveiled for Animal Crossing: City Folk, we were happy to finally get voice chat on our Wii. But, a curious slide at the conclusion of Nintendo's E3 keynote showed the device has a very peculiar brick-like adapter that the USB end's cable plugs into. Now, we're assuming this is just a power brick, but you know what your school teachers told you about assuming!

At least one thing is certain: the thing has enough cable to wrap around Nintendo HQ many times over.

Tags: animal-crossing, animal-crossing-city-folk, brick, chat, e3, e3-2008, e308, voice-chat, wii-speak, wiispeak

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Taedirk @ Jul 15th 2008 6:37PM

I guess using the integrated Bluetooth made too much sense.

Joe H @ Jul 15th 2008 6:45PM

I knew it wouldn't be bluetooth. However, they better make the length of the cord from the Wii to the brick itself longer. They made that stupid mistake with the Wii's actual power brick too. The section from the Wii to the brick is so short that it just has to hang there for me, because it doesn't reach from my Wii's location on top of a speaker (because the Wii is just barely too tall for my rack) to the ground.

Waffala @ Jul 15th 2008 6:53PM

Did you try setting your Wii laying down? I know they make special console trays with that oreintation in mind, it seems a bit safer than having to treacherously dangle your power brick.

Also, why wouldn't it be bluetooth?

seetrapp @ Jul 15th 2008 6:50PM

Can a third party use this technology to make a headset?

Waffala @ Jul 15th 2008 6:53PM

The ball is in Madcatz/Nyko's court now.

Liam @ Jul 15th 2008 7:04PM

Haha, why on earth would it be a power brick? The voltage supplied by a USB port is perfect for powering small devices like this and it's DC and everything. You only need a power brick for converting, hence the term power adaptor. This seems more like it'll contain some kind of ADC (analogue to digital converter) or something along those lines anyway.

iofthestorm @ Jul 15th 2008 9:15PM

Yeah, definitely not a power brick since it's going into the USB port.

kebertxela @ Jul 15th 2008 6:59PM

$30?
ouch.
id only buy if its usable in basic brawl.

seriously though, i bet i can only talk to friends.
which have wiis but never play them because theyall have 360s.
then im going to have to exchange friend AND system codes.
and the only way we can play together is if i call them beforehand since the matchmaking is so shitty.

this should have been made at launch.
seriously nintendo. why is online so foreign?

not to mention im positive it wont work with any old games like brawl. just like wiimotion plus.
damnit.

i love 1st party games, but xbox looks better every day.

IRA @ Jul 15th 2008 7:22PM

Seems like the brick could be an analog-to-digital converter. I think the standard "power brick" is a transformer & wouldn't be needed between the mic and USB connection.

Mike @ Jul 15th 2008 7:39PM

I'm wondering why you just couldn't plug a standard USB mic in and have it work...

CJLopez @ Jul 16th 2008 12:42AM

This will be the most likely alternative to using this.... thing....

Plug any usb mic and you are set

Tristan @ Jul 15th 2008 7:39PM

Im out of spare USB ports on my Wii!!!

Phour ZwanZig @ Jul 15th 2008 11:24PM

Ha.. Heres where I will post this..

What I was thinking when I saw this is that soon there will be no room for anymore USB stuff w/o a hub.. Therefor I bet this has 2-3 USB ports on it as well..

temperedreason @ Jul 15th 2008 7:41PM

maybe its a flash drive storage option and mic in one!!!

yeah, right.

CubeGuy @ Jul 15th 2008 8:35PM

I'm also leaning towards the analog to digital converter box. The Hey You Pikachu mic setup had the same thing.

Sonic_13 @ Jul 15th 2008 10:04PM

My guess would be that it houses a special chip (or something along those lines) to filter out background noise.

Whatever it is this was a really great idea by Nintendo and way better than a headset.

I can't wait to see what other games support this. It would be really cool if the photo channel was updated so you could share albums with other people and talk at the same time. Or if chat was added to the home menu allowing for chat basically anytime, anygame.

"At least one thing is certain: the thing has enough cable to wrap around Nintendo HQ many times over."

If you look back though, the original sensor bar was pretty similar in terms of excess cable.

Just look:
http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/748/748011/making-sense-of-the-sensor-bar-20061129061055470-000.jpg