Voice Chat on the Nintendo Wii U, a deal breaker for many

Nintendo has already explained its intention to cater towards core gamers with the Wii U. The company has promised better third party support, bringing the most popular games like Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, and other games whose main draw is for the multiplayer crowd. Apparently, Nintendo’s voice chat system on the Wii U isn’t going to be a straight forward as on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The Wii U will feature voice chat, but it will be game specific. It will not be a system wide feature as it is found on competing consoles. Nintendo has issued a statement on voice chat for the Wii U, and here’s what they had to say:

“Wii U will have in-game chat functionality for select games, including, but not limited to, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Assassin’s Creed III and Mass Effect 3. This feature will be supported by licensed stereo headsets that plug directly into the headphone port of the Game Pad. Licensed headsets are available from Turtle Beach and TRITTON.”

For voice chat on the Wii U, it looks like you’ll have to invest in a pricey headset option from either Turtle Beach or Tritton. The Turtle Beach models start at $19.95 and will release when the console arrives next month. Furthmore, the only way to plug in the headset is by using the Wii U GamePad (tablet) and it cannot be used with the Wii U Pro Controller Model.