# Nintendo Tried GameChat Nearly 20 Years Ago [Nintendo E3 2008 Press Conference](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z4DOn9465xo&t=1212) from Carslock > "It's not a singular headset, but a community microphone that let's every person in the room talk with another room full of players anywhere in the world." I've been watching old Nintendo E3 Press Conferences. I wanted some context for *Metroid Prime 3: Corruption* for an upcoming recording ([[S7 - Metroid Prime|👀]]), so I started in 2006. Now I am reliving 2008 and what a time to have been alive. We need more sales data, market research, and corporate speak in our presentations. We have lost something. Anyway, when watching the reveal of *Animal Crossing: City Folk*, Nintendo also revealed the Wii Speak microphone accessory. I have always wanted one of these for the pure novelty of it. In rewatching the press conference though, I am struck at how similar Wii Speak and its intentions were to today's Nintendo Switch 2, its built-in microphone, and [[Switch 2's GameChat looks awful, but is FUN – The Verge|GameChat]]. Chris Kohler for [Wired](https://web.archive.org/web/20160305082538/http://www.wired.com/2008/07/how-nintendos-w/) in 2008; > "There’s some noise filtering going on. It’s designed to pick up stuff other than what’s coming out of the TV. If you put this on your TV, if this was a regular microphone, you’d get your TV sound going in. But this is a USB plug-in. So the sound coming out of your TV is going into the Wii Speak, and when it goes back into the Wii, it throws that sound away." Eiji Tokunaga in a [Ask the Developer interview](https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-17-gamechat-part-2/) about GameChat; >"However, implementing a built-in microphone is actually quite difficult. If we don't make any adjustments, the microphone would naturally pick up sounds from the game, such as music. But if those aren't removed, then the most important sounds, the players' voices, might be drowned out. Especially in handheld mode, controller sounds, such as buttons being pressed and rumble, would also get picked up, so those need to be removed too." What is old is new again.