Voice recognition for Wii arises again

Moz La Punk reports

A supposed insider leaks information about some features that could pop up in upcoming Wii games. Advanced voice recognition? Come inside for details.

It surely is a time filled with rumours. The past few days we brough you rumours about the possible time when the Wii release date will be released (read here) and a big fat new rumour section called ‘Hear Say Today’ (which you really need to read here), and now we’ve got another thing to add to the pile.

Apparently, a trusted person at the IGN Insider forums, who has been right before about a speaker in the Wii controller, has dropped a few pieces of information.

“…voice communication will be via wireless, head-mounted microphones…”

“Some peripherals for the DS will be compatible with Wii and vice-versa.”

“Many Nintendo first party games (specifically games designed for a younger audience) will feature a new system currently being developed by Nintendo called ‘voice to text communication’.”

“The system works using an advanced voice recognition system which Nintendo has been developing for several years. When a user speaks the sound is converted into on screen text and sent to the other players. However, rather than just plain text being sent the system also picks up the tone, pitch and volume of the voice and translates that into colour, font size and character set. For example, if a player shouts ‘I win’ loudly into the microphone the on screen text may be all capitalized, and in a large red font; conversely if a player speaks quietly the font may be a pastel shade and smaller.”

This system also allows online voice communication to be easily censored by the user.”

Funnily enough, as old school MLP readers might remember, an old visitor of the ‘Broken Saints’ blog over a year ago called ‘Aries’ talked about this same feature extensively. While even a broken clock is right two times a day, this rumour isn’t that far out there, considering Nintendo must have learned a lot about the use of voice in games with their DS.

The apparent patent for this technique can be found here.

We’ll keep you updated if anything breaks, however, we wouldn’t expect anything official before the Leipzig Games Convention next week. If anyone can confirm the things this supposed Insider has said, we’d be very happy.

Written by Michel Musters, head editor

This to me would seem really cool as it would allow a great way of communicating using the Wii online, while still allowing censorships, so everybody wins.