Nintendo Wii Fanboy

After months of anticipation, with Nintendoholics craving any slight detail about online communication in Mario Kart Wii, here's how it all went down on a beautiful thing called the internet:

First, we pondered amongst friends about the possibility of voice chat in the upcoming racer. When we found out that this wasn't happening, it was no biggie -- while some of you, we're sure, screamed in anguish to the heavens, most of us (being the realists that we are) never actually expected such a feature in the first place.

All hope was not lost, though. Praying to the Nintendo gods, we begged for some way of communicating with friends, so that our online matches would be deeper than normal matches against the computer. After all, what's the point of online play in the first place if it doesn't feel human? Our pleas did not go unnoticed, though, and Nintendo announced text chat support for the game.

With 12-player races, weekly challenges, uploadable/downloadable ghosts, tournaments, and even a dedicated Mario Kart channel, online play in Mario Kart Wii sounds impressively complete. Yet here's something you won't find when you first jump online: voice chat support. Rather, we'll all be communicating via text chat, with Nintendo's European arm confirming on its site: "You can create rooms for friends to join and even text chat while you're waiting for other racers."

This is hardly surprising. Time and again, Nintendo has refused to include voice chat in its games, often citing the personal security and wellbeing of players. But surely the ability to chat to registered friends isn't asking too much? Any of you happen to think Nintendo is being overly cautious?


[Via IGN]