Wii Speak

According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the microphone was designed to "clearly capture many different voices being spoken in a room at the same time and convey that over the Internet." Addressing concerns over background noise due to the placement of the microphone near a television set, Animal Crossing: City Folk producer Katsuya Eguchi stated that the device was designed to filter out video game sound from the audio speakers. Miyamoto noted at the time that the quality of the noise filtering functionality in the Wii Speak is "very good", which may have contributed to the cost of the device. An on/off switch was originally planned, but the microphone was ultimately designed to only turn on when a compatible game wants access to it.