Wii Speak – Speaker Phone

Nintendo’s press coverage is on the move, currently they’ve demonstrated Wii Speak which will allow voice chat on your Nintendo Wii console. Although the Xbox 360 has had voice chat since its day one release, Nintendo is bringing it in a new unique way: community chat.

Basically, the device which will go on top of the Wii sensor bar will allow everyone in the room to talk to everyone in the room on another Wii. Where you need a headset on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this will give the entire room a chance to chat along.

Having a speaker phone style behavior is neat, but what about when everyone is asleep and you want to play a network game with a buddy? Will the device pickup a whisper across the room? Perhaps a speaker attachment will be announced later, but for now… you’re going to be conference calling with everyone in the game room.

(Thanks, Kotaku)

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E3 2011 Preview SummariesE3 2011 Preview Summaries

You might notice that I’ve been pretty silent on E3 2011 previews, despite hustling around the entire time. That is because I’ve been writing almost all of them for Strategy Informer.

So, those of you who are regulars at Gaming Podcast – and judging by hits, there are tons of you – here are excerpts of the previews I’ve written for Strategy Informer for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles, plus a link to the full article.

UbiSoft’s Pre-E3 Briefing:

At the briefing, they showed off the following games: Rayman Origins, Driver: San Francisco, Far Cry 3, Brothers In Arms: The Furious Four, The Adventures of Tintin, Ghost Recon: Future Warrior, Trackmania 2, Raving Rabbids: Alive & Kicking, Just Dance 3, Rocksmith, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. (Read more…)

Dead Island (PC, PS3, 360):

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RUMOR MILL: Wii 2 Controllers to Have Cameras?RUMOR MILL: Wii 2 Controllers to Have Cameras?

Some leaked documents are showing that the Wii 2 controller will not only have screens on them, but front facing cameras, too.

According to Escapist Magazine:

According to a source that Develop calls “close to the matter,” the controller for Nintendo’s next console will have a front-facing camera, which will be used for creating in-game images.

This comes after weeks of speculation about the new console and its controller, and the source also claims to be able to confirm some of those rumors. Supposedly, the controller will indeed have a large, 6 inch touchscreen (stylus perhaps included) and a standard button layout, as was first rumored about a month ago.

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Let us know if you believe this rumor.

Nintendo’s Wii Storage IssuesNintendo’s Wii Storage Issues

Nintendo’s WiiWare channel is reported to be doing well (says Nintendo) and their Virtual Console games continue to invoke nostalgic downloads. Now, as Networked based gaming slowly starts to crawl on the console Nintendo has begun to realize they’re going to hit some storage issues.

The 512MB of internal flash memory is a bit lacking, especially considering you can purchase a 2GB flash drive for under USD $50.00 in todays market. While Sony and Microsoft work to increment their disk capacities in 20GB intervals Nintendo’s still trying to figure out how to solve their internal storage issues.

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As this becomes, as Reggie put it, a “mainstream problem” Nintendo is going to find their harder core demographic moving to other consoles that do it right and allow for expandability. There is a reason, after all, the other consoles cost a bit more to buy.

(Thanks, IGN)