Nintendo phasing out Wii Speak peripheral from retailers

@Beatz
Yup. Need to make room for another soon-to-to-be unsupported peripheral that will die a slow, silent death.

@fdfthr

LOL good one dude

Name a company that hasn't.

Historically, all add-ons have failed, with the exception of the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak. And depending on your definition of "add-on", the Super Game Boy.

There hasn't been a successful add-on for any system.

Sega CD? Dead.
3DO Digital Video Module? Released for one version of the console, and you were lucky to even see it.
Jaguar CD? Deader than the Sega CD.
64DD? Only released in Japan to save face, and then only if you bought a year's service.
PS2 Hard drive? Costed over $100, and used for exactly one game in America.

While this fits more into "peripheral" than "add-on", very, very few peripherals have caught on as well. Usually only a handful of games supporting one, before it's forgotten.

The Dreamcast Fishing Controller ain't catching much fish today, the original PS EyeToy only had a few games, and the Hey You, Pikachu microphone is silent.

@Drakkenfyre
Speaking (pardon the pun) more to the fact that they're not supporting features that are considered standard on the competition's platform. Then again, they'd say that they're competing in a different market and therefore have different requirements. Those of which do not include voice chat.

To be honest, it's Nintendo. I love Nintendo, but their online service sucks. Friends Codes are one of the worst ideas for anyone over the age of 10.

So a standard that the other two consoles have as standard, is barely supported by Nintendo.

They know they will make a ton of money anyway, so they probably don't see a real need to support the microphone for more than the, what, three uses it had already? Animal Crossing, the Wii Speak Channel, and one other thing?

When it comes to any accessory, the best thing to do is ask "How many games will this thing support?", because unless it's dirt cheap, no one wants to shell out $200 for an accessory that's used for one game ever, in it's lifetime.

@Drakkenfyre
What about the dual shock? The original PS1 controller was d-pad only, but when Sony released the dual shock controller for the PS1, many games ultimately adopted it, as did many consumers. It became standard.

If Nintendo (or anyone) had ever released an effective lighting accessory for unlit Gameboy Colors and especially GBA's, it would have been a huge success, too.

Uh, also, um, Kinect has sold 2.5 million plus in about 2 weeks. Not sure if that says anything.

That wasn't an add-on. Had Sony not packed it in, it probably would have never caught on. Developers don't like developing for peripherals that only a certain percentage of their audience has. See my answer below about the Wii Motion Plus being built-in.

We only got the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak because Iguana Entertainment was in Japan, touring Nintendo labs, and they saw the Expansion Pak. It was required for the 64DD because the system required more RAM for it to work. Iguana realized what it could do for games, and begged Nintendo to release it as a separate accessory. They sent Nintendo a demo of what they could do with it, and Nintendo agreed. They released it as a separate accessory. It became the only successful add-on in history so far. And in that case, it was a developer themselves who urged for the release of it.

The Kinect is new. How many games does it support? How many are planned to support it? How many are considered non-casual? It's success does not lie in the amount of units sold, but hardware longeviitiy and software adoption.

It could sell 2 million copies, but if it only gets 20 games in it's lifetime, and never goes anywhere else, it's a failure.

The Sega CD had decent sales for the time, and was at the forefront of CD-based gaming when it was new. It had tons of games, but is still considered a failure. It takes more than units sold to equal a success.

@Drakkenfyre

by that logic my Atari 5200 was a failure, and my NES, because no-one really plays them anymore.

@Pandaman

Well it *was* a dumb idea, to be fair. I mean, the DS has better chat capabilities than the Wii does.

@baby sea tuna

This site was waaaay better back then. There's a reason i hardly post here anymore

Game developers have to walk a fine line. Do they develop games for the accessory, and screw over people who don't have it? Do they develop the game for use with and without it, and have to gimp it so the differences aren't so great that they make one superior over the other? Or do they ignore it completely, and go for the biggest market with the regular controller?

Now that Nintendo has built it into the standard remote, and has discontinued the original model, I think we are going to get more results, but I think it's far too late into the Wii's lifespan for this to make any kind of huge result.

@Drakkenfyre
I give Nintendo 'til Skyward Sword releases to prove that MotionPlus was worth it. (For the record, I haven't gotten one.)

@(Unverified)

That's what they're starting to use, actually. Black Ops Wii and Conduit 2 are both using the Headbanger Headset

@Wildside *why game studios don't take advantage*

curse not edit