Nintendo snags wiikaraoke.com, built-in mic rumor heats up

53 Comments by James Ransom-Wiley May 25th 2006 1:25PM
Filed under: Culture, Nintendo Wii, Business

The latest Wii rumor, which speculates that the Wiimote has a built-in mic, is starting to heat up with news that Nintendo has registered the 'wiikaraoke.com' domain. Currently, the address redirects browsers to the Nintendo homepage, but we have to assume that this will all change, in time. Of course, Nintendo hasn't confirmed a thing, so the domain could end up remaining dead space or used for other purposes, like a contest.

Still, we can't help but point out that the Wiimote makes for a perfect impromptu microphone.

Tags: karaoke, mic, microphone, Wiimote

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

Tim: May 25th 2006; 1:30PM

Shoot! I didn't think of that one! I did snag www.playwii.com and www.supermariouniverse.com though. Do you think those are any good?

Japple: May 25th 2006; 1:31PM

Just FYI, Nintendo never forwards anything to their .com site. They will make it a 404 if they have to but not redirect. I've seen this happen too many times before.

Draco: May 25th 2006; 1:31PM

makese sense they would use as much DS tech as possible in the remote. the only thing missing now is the screen :S (well and the processor I guess)

benjamin: May 25th 2006; 1:33PM

I think a microphone in the remote is a given considering that the DS has one. Karaoke would almost certainly be a hit in Japan.

Not my cup of tea at all, but once again, that's something my wife would like. Just one more thing that'd expand the market, I guess.

LSK: May 25th 2006; 1:38PM

Damnit, they got it before me. I was gonna register wiikaraoke.com but I guess they beat me to it.

I had a great idea, it was karaoke, but you used a penis instead of a mic. Nintendo you ruined me, I can't just out 'n out call it cockkaraoke now can I?

Mike: May 25th 2006; 1:44PM

lets hope theres no mic. I rented mario party 7 for my gamecube and it came with a mic. Me and my sister and her friend where playing it and we all thought it was the stupidist thing ever when we got to a minigame where we had to blow up a baloon by saying bigger into the microphone. Whoever was doing it, sounded like an idiot. Why couldent we just hit A to make the baloon bigger?

It was clear it was very childish. Now whenever we play games, we always remember that momment and some1 will say "bigger" and we all laugh.

I seriously hope theres no mic so nintendo doesent put stupid ideas like this into games.

ncdign: May 25th 2006; 1:46PM

Drunken Japanese businessman all over globe have just become very excited...

ResidentGamer.com: May 25th 2006; 1:47PM

Look out for NintendoIdol.com

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2006; 1:48PM

@Japple This WAS registered by Nintendo. Check the WHOIS information on www.register.com or a similar site. You do appear to be right, though, about Nintendo never redirecting; this site doesn't either. Nintendo just has it parked.

chris: May 25th 2006; 1:49PM

It really doesn't matter if you registered those sites. I'm fairly positive that if Nintendo wants them, they'll first, ask you politely to surrender them. Second, sue you into oblivion in order to get sites with their trademarks into their custody.

jron: May 25th 2006; 1:49PM

nothing like people spitting onto my wiimote.

minus_273: May 25th 2006; 1:50PM

" lets hope theres no mic. I rented mario party 7 for my gamecube and it came with a mic. Me and my sister and her friend where playing it and we all thought it was the stupidist thing ever when we got to a minigame where we had to blow up a baloon by saying bigger into the microphone. Whoever was doing it, sounded like an idiot. Why couldent we just hit A to make the baloon bigger?

It was clear it was very childish. Now whenever we play games, we always remember that momment and some1 will say "bigger" and we all laugh."

you're joking right? you ask a question and answer it in the second paragraph. You do get it right?

Nintendo Kiddy: May 25th 2006; 1:54PM

This is nothing. My friends at school told me the wiimote will have a add on walkie talkie ability so we can take it to school and help each other out on tests. You can't do that with a crappy 360 controller or dual shock can you? That's because nintendo makes the best systems ever. Theyre going to sell 10 million consoles by march.

Nintendo for teh wiin.

Japple: May 25th 2006; 1:55PM

Actually if you somehow got Nintendo.com because Nintendo forgot to renew their domain, you have full rights to the domain name. All they can do is offer money and stuff for the domain or else they can't take it away from you.

Remember that one guy who got Microsoft.com when someone forgot to renew it? Chup, and you know what the guy did? He just gave it back to Microsoft as an act of kindness probably hoping for this big reward but all he got in return was this idiotic letter from bill gates saying thanks. >_>

Regardless if your product is trademarked or not, you don't own domains unless you rent them. Yes, you rent domains not buy them.

As for the mic thing, I believe it would be ingenious if they did do that. I mean one of the biggest passtimes in Japan is kareoke, and that alone beats watching TV over there.

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2006; 1:56PM

Nintendo has wiicooking.com as well.

Justin: May 25th 2006; 1:58PM

What about wiidruming.com?

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2006; 2:02PM

Nope, wiidrumming.com is not registered, and wiidrum.com is registered by someone else.

Justin: May 25th 2006; 2:03PM

Or better yet, wiiwacking.com?

(Yeah another pun, what of it?)

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2006; 2:08PM

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=wiikaraoke.com
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=wiicooking.com
They also have wiimusic.com, but that's what they were showing at the press conference, right?

Just change the domain name at the end to see more. Maybe Wii can discover something new.

GlitchCog: May 25th 2006; 2:08PM

This doesn't mean there will be a microphone built into the remote. It takes addons, remember? The game could just come with a microphone attachment.

James: May 25th 2006; 2:08PM

People are stupid.

If the Wii has a Mic, access to the internet when off, and has VOIP, phones are dead.

JimmyHACK: May 25th 2006; 2:10PM

WOW, using a microphone with a game....

INNOVATION

INNOVATE A NEW IP

Marc: May 25th 2006; 2:10PM

If the microphone rumor is true, I can only see one thing happening...

NINTENDOGS WII. Oh joy (gets rope and hangs self).

Terry: May 25th 2006; 2:12PM

Sorry Japple, but you're just wrong about the relationship between Trademark and domain names. While your analogy that you only "rent" domains is accurate from a certian point of view, you can still own a trademark present in domain name and control its use, even if you're not the domain registrar.

In the US, domain names are goverened by an amendment to Section 43 of the Trademark Act of 1946 called the "Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act".

But more practically, when a domain name is registered with ICANN, you consent to binding arbitration under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy which has a 3-prong analysis that comes into play when a "domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service.", the registrar has no legtimate claim, and the name was registerd in bad faith. This policy is administrated by either WIPO or NAF.

cringer8: May 25th 2006; 2:20PM

Nintendo has already revealed the microphone in the Wiimote. I didn't think this was a rumor. Remember a few days before Nintendo's E3 press conference when that magazine came out with all the secrets accidently revealed? Well, the microphone was part of that. They speculated at the time that you could "send" a whispered message to your teammate that they could hear on their speaker (at the time we didn't even know about the speaker). It also revealed the built-in memory inside the Wiimote (that's right, memory in your controller; lots of possibility for developers).

There IS a microphone in the thing. More interestingly is what Nintendo is doing with it in regards to online play. They have a patent published here:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=%28Nintendo.AS.+AND+Text.TTL.%29&OS=AN/Nintendo+and+TTL/Text&RS=(AN/Nintendo+AND+TTL/Text)

This sounds interesting. Voice recognition that can also tell if you're angry or scared? Nintendo rocks.

Let's just hope the recognition is better than the Stroop test in Brain Age (having to say "lue" in place of "blue"). We'll see.

Justron: May 25th 2006; 2:22PM

They've also got wiifitness.com

I've been waiting a while for a video game that will actually get me to move around. Maybe a rhythm game based on squat thrusts? Of Bicep curls? Maybe it'll come with a water based weight peripheral, who knows!

Felix Andrews: May 25th 2006; 2:23PM

Karaoke + Wario = Warioke. NOT IMMEDIATELY APPARENT GENIUS.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

riffgod: May 25th 2006; 2:50PM

while it's fun to talk about the possiblity of a microphone inside of the new wiimote, it's not that new of a concept. Every current gen system has a microphone peripheral. Karaoke games have been out for some time now. Nintendo could easily put out a microphone periperal to attach to the wiimote.

I did however like the idea of using my wii as a voip phone.

idioteraser: May 25th 2006; 2:54PM

Warioware Smooth moves does a miningame where you do thrusts with the wiimote.

dotun.o: May 25th 2006; 2:55PM

@ #2 and #9,
I'm not sure what you mean by not redirecting, because it does redirect to nintendo.com, at least on my PC :)

idioteraser: May 25th 2006; 2:56PM

At least Nintendo is calling for more uses of the mic if it enhances gameplay. I have to say blowing into a mic in order to initate an escape move in an rpg is much better then pressing several buttons at once and holding them for 45 secs.

Edwin: May 25th 2006; 2:58PM

The Wiimote is like a swiss-army knife. I wonder how many more secrets it has? I hope it will has a built in shaver for a quick shave after long hours of gaming and a two way radio function so that I could communicate with another Wiimote in my house. Also Nintendo should add a massage feature in the Wii system so that we could us the vibrations of the Wiimote to massage our arms after continous shaking and swinging the Wiimote. The Wiimote is becoming my bestfriend. :)

Robert: May 25th 2006; 3:00PM

This just IN!!!

Sony registers www.dualshockmic/pricegauge.com

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2006; 3:04PM

@dotun.o Really? I just get an error message, but when I look up the WHOIS info on the sites, they're clearly registered by Nintendo.

Mike Ray: May 25th 2006; 3:06PM

If there is going to be a microphone in the Wiimote, then this system will be HUGE in Japan. I don't know about the rest of the world, but the Nintendo Wii is going to win the console war in Japan this generation.

digitalFrequency: May 25th 2006; 3:11PM

so its probably already been said, but i'd just like to firmly back it up... wii karaoke for the win. karaoke is popular in japan (countless numbers of karaoke revolution games in japan) and is a damn fun game to play too (the american version).

i hope nintendo does look into doing karaoke. as for the complaints about microphone and the gamecube, it was just a few games that used the microphone. by implementing it as a main feature, developers can do as they please which can amount to some creative gameplay. so if saying bigger or doing something silly on the wii-mic sucks, that's just developers laming out. i'm fore the mic hardware. it would make things so convenient too... not having to have some extra accessories lying around. for example, i own singstar and karaoke revolution for ps2 and have 4 separate mics (2 for each game) and its just a hassle untangling them and storing them and such.

nintendo i think has it made if it can turn a wii-mote into a swiss army knife of sorts (as someone mentioned). just as long as the quality of the particular accessory doesn't suck.

Trachalio: May 25th 2006; 3:14PM

If you check out the registrar info:

Domain Name: WIIKARAOKE.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.tucows.com
Name Server: NOA3DNS-E.NINTENDO.COM
Name Server: NOA3DNS-W.NINTENDO.COM
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
EPP Status: clientDeleteProhibited
EPP Status: clientTransferProhibited
EPP Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 27-Apr-2006
Creation Date: 27-Apr-2006
Expiration Date: 27-Apr-2008

It does appear that Nintendo owns it, or at least someone went to a lot of trouble to figure out Nintendo's domain name servers to make it look like Nintendo owns it.

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2006; 3:44PM

Someone on The Wiire's forums pointed out that they registered wiischool.com as well.
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=wiischool.com
So far, we know that they have:
wiichannel.com
wiikaraoke.com
wiicooking.com
wiimusic.com
wiifitness.com
wiischool.com
and obviously wiisports.com

Pedro: May 25th 2006; 3:45PM

Now you have the complete bitch package, you can sing and flail your arms like a complete idiot. Must be embarasing to play with your wii in front of people

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2006; 3:50PM

and we can add another obvious one and one not so obvious
wiiconnect24.com
wiinews.com
They're both registered by Nintendo. This is crazy. @_@

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2006; 3:53PM

And they just keep coming...
wiiboys.com
wiigirls.com
wiiparents.com

Paul P.: May 25th 2006; 3:55PM

I think Nintendo is essentially "cyber squatting" here so in the future they won't have to buy any domain from someone.

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2006; 3:57PM

Ugh...people keep posting them, so I'm just going to put more one more time and then you'll have to check out the thread yourself if you want to see more. >_>;
http://boards.revolutionreport.net/index.php?showtopic=9024&st=0&p=185992&#entry185992
wiiworld.com
wiilove.com
wiipower.com
wiivc.com
wiifamily.com

jron: May 25th 2006; 3:58PM

what, no wiicirclejerk.com?

LostRyoga: May 25th 2006; 4:01PM

Some more:
wiianimation.com
wiiareone.com
wiibeauty.com
wiiboys.com
wiibreeding.com
wiichallenger.com
wiichannel.com
wiicommunication.com
wiicooking.com
wiicountry.com
wiicreator.com
wiiculture.com
wiidiary.com
wiiearth.com
wiiexecutive.com
wiifamily.com
wiifitness.com
wiigeneration.com
wiigettogether.com
wiigirls.com
wiihappy.com
wiihistory.com
wiijourney.com
wiikaraoke.com
wiikids.com
wiilanguages.com
wiilife.com
wiilove.com
wiimagazine.com
wiimanagement.com
wiimap.com
wiimoney.com
wiimusic.com
wiinews.com
wiiparents.com
wiipower.com
wiipuzzle.com
wiiscenario.com
wiischool.com
wiiscience.com
wiisenior.com
wiisports.com
wiistory.com
wiistudent.com
wiivc.com
wiiventure.com
wiiwords.com
wiiworld.com

GTG: May 25th 2006; 4:45PM

The Nintendo Wii..."From name to game, we're determined embarass you for owning one."

Pretty soon, I'm going to have to buy a trenchcoat and sunglasses to buy mine. The virtual console better be worth it.

cyberfelon: May 25th 2006; 7:25PM

I was scared they were going to add "Wii" to the end of every game title. But I actually like the way it sounds at the start of the titles, and I'm totally fine with that. "Wii Sports", "Wii Music", "Wii Cooking" -- it sounds so... right.

Marco: May 25th 2006; 10:29PM

Joystiq: Prepare to gather all wii photoshops since the console was first announced to make a special post when it launches! :D

Danieru: May 25th 2006; 10:37PM

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaoke:

"A karaoke game was initially released for the Nintendo Famicom but its limited computing ability made for a short catalog of songs, and therefore reduced replay value. As a result, karaoke games were considered little more than collector's items until games saw release in the higher-capacity DVD format."