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David Low
10 May, 2006

E3 2006: Speaker and Microphone in Wii controller

Wii News | And apparently still more secrets to be revealed...
Nintendo’s pre-E3 press conference has just finished, and yet more features of the Wii's controller have been revealed.

The motion-sensing controller contains a microphone/speaker combo, which allows the game to send sounds directly to the controller, and the player to communicate with the game via voice. A demonstration was given in Zelda: Twilight Princess - when using Link's bow, the sound of pulling back the quiver and bow string going taut can be heard through the controller, and then as the arrow is fired, the player hears the whoosh as it leaves their hands and flies towards the enemy.

This seems like a logical extension of surround sound systems in games, where the player themselves becomes a sound channel in the game's 3D soundscape. We're sure that when combined with a 5.1 surround system, this will allow for the most immersive sound yet in a game. Reggie Fils-Aime said the feature “adds depth of sound, that no other controller, and no other system can offer and developers have a whole lot of ideas of how to use this."

What's scary is that Reggie also implied that there are still more secrets to be revealed about the Wii console or it's controller. The controller is already packed with so many features it's hard to imagine what else could be in there, but we'll have to wait and see if this is the case.

More on this as news comes, and we'll hopefully have some hands-on impressions of the Wii controller within 24 hours, so stay tuned!

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12 Comments
7 years ago
Um, there is no microphone on the Wii controller. I was at the press conference and they definitely didn't say any such thing, nor is it reflected in any of their press releases, etc.

That said, it wouldn't be surprising if this was one of the things they added to the systemin the future, seeing that it's online and the DS has one.
7 years ago
I haven't heard anything about a microphone, either. It would make sense, though.
7 years ago
I can see the future, and it involves a lot fo AA batteries. I pray 3rd parties are quick on the uptake for releasing rechargable packs.
7 years ago
Cerebral wrote
I can see the future, and it involves a lot fo AA batteries. I pray 3rd parties are quick on the uptake for releasing rechargable packs.
Mm...
Moving from GBA's AA replaceable batteries to DS's built-in battery was great, I don't want to have to move back to AAs for the Wiimotes icon_neutral.gif

And yes, no-one official has ever said anything about a microphone in the Wiimote.
7 years ago
if it is AA driven ... go for the Varta 15min NiMH recharger, it's great

(sorry to sound like an ad, but its 100x better than the old Grandcell one I had)

edit: maybe they will use the speaker as a mic also ... if they only want to detect basic sound
(a mic is effectively a speaker used 'in reverse')
7 years ago
Perhaps it will come with Lith Ion AA batterys.
7 years ago
I'm sure this has been said before, but including a microphone in the Revmote means they have to manage the compression of voice data and sending it to the console.

Since they are using Blutooth this may not be an issue since it has decent bandwidth...?
7 years ago
Probably, it should be alright. I like the idea of a speaker and a microphone, I wonder if you can use the microphone to communicate during online gaming? Probably would't work too well.
7 years ago
macca wrote
Since they are using Blutooth this may not be an issue since it has decent bandwidth...?
Bluetooth will be fine, as long as you stay pretty close to the Wii (2.5-3m). Otherwise you might start experiencing sound drop offs due to interference from other devices.
7 years ago
nikack wrote
macca wrote
Since they are using Blutooth this may not be an issue since it has decent bandwidth...?
Bluetooth will be fine, as long as you stay pretty close to the Wii (2.5-3m). Otherwise you might start experiencing sound drop offs due to interference from other devices.
Within 5m, I believe, is the advertised range...

If this kind of thing was a problem, then to save on sending this kind of data too much, and also to stop sound-lag, I guess the game would preload sounds into the Wiimote first, and then tell the Wiimote to play sounds from its own cache?
I'm not quite sure about the maximum bitrate of Bluetooth connections icon_smile.gif
7 years ago
Hyperworm wrote
Within 5m, I believe, is the advertised range...

If this kind of thing was a problem, then to save on sending this kind of data too much, and also to stop sound-lag, I guess the game would preload sounds into the Wiimote first, and then tell the Wiimote to play sounds from its own cache?
I'm not quite sure about the maximum bitrate of Bluetooth connections icon_smile.gif
Yeah, 5m to use as the pointer, 10m as a conventional wireless controller. If the controller has it's own cache the rumors of each remote being $100 look more and more likely.

Bluetooth 2.0 EDR is 2.1Mbit/s. Actually it looks as if 2.0 should be ok, since it does have AFH (which I didn't think it had).
7 years ago
That would be handy if it had it's own cache, but it would jack the price up too much, not such a good idea.
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