The Wii finally gets a voice chat solution with WiiSpeak, which was unveiled earlier at E3 2008. There's not a lot of games known that will use the mic yet, but what can you expect from a new peripheral? So what games will be using WiiSpeak? Answer in the full article.

Animal Crossing, which has been confirmed earlier this month for the Wii, received a major update from Nintendo's E3 press conference today. According to the game's director, the game will have a new microphone peripheral called WiiSpeak. You know what that means? Yep, voice chat on the Wii! That and more announcements for the game in the full article.

Yes - CONFIRMED. We can't even stress that enough with all capital letters. A blog post from Tom East of the Official Nintendo Magazine solidifies the rumors that went 'round since the magazine sprinkled delicious hints of an Animal Crossing coming to Nintendo's new platforms. And the word goes: the announcement is going to be made at E3. More details at the full story.

We learned just a while ago that there are plans to turn the Wii version of Animal Crossing (also on Nintendo DS) into a MMO video game title. For those familiar with the game, this is a very feasible concept given the features of the title that rely on real-life conditions such as weather, social conventions, time, and others.

But the million dollar question is how exactly Nintendo intends to go about this. Designer and Project Head Katsuya Eguchi wouldn't spill enough beans to provide us with the exact picture but according to his statements, they are thinking of providing mobile and PC connection for basic features such as sending messages to other players.

Furthermore, Nintendo revealed as well today plans for an official DS flash card that will be used at first for the back catalog of GameBoy and GameBoy Color video game titles. Quite interestingly, it was also said that this flash card will serve as Nintendo's way of offering publisher-supported content to consumers.

If you didn't quite understand that last statement, you can think of it as Nintendo's upcoming WiiWare channel for the DS. If you want to go further, this is also a prelude to Nintendo supporting community-created stuff (read: homebrew).

Despite those exciting possibilities, it is still uncertain at this point as to how far Nintendo is willing to go with this.

The DS version of Animal Crossing by Nintendo (also for the Wii) just shows how fun the game is in multiplayer. Of course, the question "how would Animal Crossing be like in MMORPG setting?" crossed our minds after seeing how much the DS version of Animal Crossing turned out to be highly successful in the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection. And the (probable) good news? We may actually get to see it for ourselves, since there are now talks that Animal Crossing - the franchise that just looks good as an MMORPG game - will indeed become an MMORPG.

That is not to say that the rumored Animal Crossing MMORPG will be a PC title; the gaming world grapevine talks of a Wii MMORPG, this allegedly according to Edge magazine's Japanese source.

We're not sure how Nintendo will go about it, but if it indeed becomes true, it looks like Nintendo will have another severe case of Wii console shortage.

We're still waiting for Nintendo's confirmation, so stay tuned for further updates!

If you're into them game collectibles, then maybe you'll find this cute enough for you to pull out US$ 39 from your wallets. This one here is a World Trading Figure Set for the lovable Animal Crossing game.

I personally think it certainly has that zing factor to it, especially if it's just plain chibbi-ness we're talking about. Anyhow, there are nine separate figures, each measuring an inch, along with them trees to greenify the Animal Crossing globe. Apart from that, it also has some more stickers to make your Animal Crossing globe a nicer world to -- er -- display.

Again, it's nothing oober fancy. Just enough to get those cutesy points coming in.

So, how's the weather up there? A chicken who's managed to cross the road safely just told us that everything's going to be sun, sun, sun with regards to the supposed Animal Crossing game coming to the Wii. For one thing, the game is finally confirmed. It's heading for the Wii, and it would most definitely be sometime this year.

Aside from the confirmation itself, we've also learned that online capability will be incorporated into the game. No surprise there, since Animal Crossing for the DS used the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. But more than this, it's also been heard that the Forecast Channel will be integrated within the game's real-time clock.

Whatever the weather is in your part of the world, it will be reflected into this simulation game. Stands to reason too. If you're living your life in the real world where it's sunny-cloudy-stormy, then might as well have the same weather in the virtual Animal Crossing world in real-time.

Animal Crossing was originally mentioned at the Game Developers Conference early this March as being ported to the then-Nintendo Revolution. Since then, the name's been changed to Wii, and not much has been heard about the probable importation of the title to Nintendo's next-gen.

But like everything else that seems to be doing some last-minute sprints before 2006 officially comes to a close, the rumor mill has been turning once again, resurrecting the buzz that the game will definitely cross over to the Wii, and soon. Posted on the electronic version of Kyoto Shinbun below the credits on the new Animal Crossing, the sentence "Let's meet in Wii" suddenly pops up.

Well, if that doesn't spark up the speculations that it'll be coming soon, then we don't know what will! Certainly, our interest has been piqued. And although we haven't heard anything official on the matter for now, we can't help but look forward to all the wondrous possibilities this game could provide with the Wii.

Don't worry, we'll keep you posted on this one.

Wow. Today, Nintendo announced that 3 million copies of Animal Crossing: Wild World have been shipped in Japan. According to our sales records 2,645,481 have reached the hands of Japanese consumers. With that news, they dropped an interesting tidbit. Animal Crossing will be seeing an animated movie this December. That's right, an Animal Crossing anime. The directors are Jouji Shimura and Shin Angyo Onshi. The staff for the game will be collaborating with them to keep the movie appealing to fans of the game.

Great news for Animal Crossing fans. Series Director Katsuya Eguchi mentioned the series in his speech at the GDC (Game Developers Conference) where he stated “Much like the conversion from the console Animal Crossing onto DS, we are now exploring how to bring what we have developed in Wild World onto Revolution. This time it is about bringing the world we’ve set up on DS over to the console world of the Revolution.”

Animal Crossing Wild World has been a smash on the DS Stateside and is due to launch in the UK within days. The thought of having Animal Crossing appear on the revolution is one that will have fans of the series grinning with high glee. Animal Crossing Wild World made the transition from Gamecube to handheld seamlessly and brought fans of the series a different approach. Here's hoping the same can be said of the Revolution version when it sees the light of day. Now, I'm off to Tom Nooks.