Nintendo reveals UK dates for Wii Speak, Animal Crossing

One of Nintendo's big announcements at E3 was confirmation that Animal Crossing, its successful animal-collecting series for the GameCube and Nintendo DS, would be arriving on the Wii this year. Alongside Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City (City Folk in the US), Nintendo also revealed the Wii Speak peripheral: a microphone that will allow online chat with other players around the world.

At its recent event in San Francisco, Nintendo of America announced that Wii Speak would arrive in the US on November 16 alongside a new Wii Speak channel, but gave no information about the dates for other territories.

Today, Nintendo Europe has confirmed that Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City will be released in the UK on December 5. The Wii Speak peripheral will be bundled with the game, but will also be sold separately. Pricing was not revealed for either the bundle or the stand-alone Wii Speak kit. In the US, the microphone has been priced at $29.99 (around £17).

The Wii Speak channel (opened up for free via the Wii Shop by using a code supplied with the microphone) will link up to four consoles for chat, or to share text and picture messages. Nintendo says that rather than an individual headset, the microphone will "pick up the conversations from an entire room of people" to allow a wide range of social interaction. The players' Miis will represent the conversation online by matching the sound the microphone picks up, according to Nintendo.