Wiimotes already contain Audio Translators
After the cover story in Fortune magazine, CNN Money has put together a nice little write up about the guts of the controller. It’s pretty cool if you want to take a look at it, but would prefer no more wiimotes were harmed in the process. The biggest news is that your Wiimote actually contains extra functionality that you (and I for that matter) likely never knew existed. Within every wiimote is an audio translator. Manufactured and designed by Rohm, this tiny chip specifically “converts analog data such as human speech into a digital stream.” While it seems fairly logical that something would have been included from the get go, in respects to cost savings, why we didn’t know about it, or seen any use is questionable.
The important thing to understand about the chip is that it isn’t a microphone, but instead all of the components you would need to actually process the information received from a mic. Personally I think a mic was the one no-brainer feature that should have been built in from the start, but we’ve already heard plenty of rumors confirming one coming, and this all but confirms it. Every chip costs 2 dollars to produce, so it would be nice if Nintendo hurried along and brought us something so that we could use the technology we’ve already paid for.