Nintendo Drops the Ball on Wii U Voice Communication

[Shawn Zipay]

It has come to light that the in-game voice chat options available for Wii U consumers is a bit lacking. Nintendo says that voice chat will only work with "select games" including Assassin's Creed III, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and Mass Effect. Meaning, that voice chat availability will be at the discretion of game developers and not implemented globally within the platform itself.

Furthermore, those games that do support voice chat cannot make use of the microphone and speakers built into the Wii U GamePad. Rather, gamers will have to buy a licensed headset from a third-party manufacturer, much like the one from Turtle Beach shown above.

If you want to chat while using the Wii U's Pro Controller, then your options are even more limited. As that controller doesn't have a headphone jack built into it, you must make use of the Wii U GamePad as a "docking station" that your headset can plug into.

(via Ars Technica)

[CptainCrunch]

MAN! Those are some bad mistakes. Make it so you have to rely on Developer infrastructure as well as not put voice options directly into product. Not thinking about the future much.

[dvereb]

"Not thinking about the future much."
That is how I felt about the Wii too. :)

.... yet I'll still end up buying this because the wife loves Nintendo. Damn you Nintendo....