August 26^th, 2004 (12:00am) - The Mario Party franchise hasn’t done anything too innovative since its inception years ago on the Nintendo 64. When Nintendo revealed that a new peripheral for the GameCube would be utilized in order to play the series’ sixth installment, many readers believe that perhaps that Mario Party’s strong sales may soon become justified by a truly innovative way to play. Most speculated on a Nintendo branded rip-off of Sony’s EyeToy camera for the PlayStation 2, and while a camera could’ve been something interesting, we can now reveal that Nintendo has opted to include a simple mic and voice recognition system into Mario Party 6.

The GameCube Mic will be packaged with Mario Party 6 and will be utilized within a handful of the title’s mini-games, seventy-five of which are new for this latest installment. In some mini-games the mic will be used in ways that have not yet been disclosed, but in others it will be used to answer questions similar to a TV game show.

Many will remember Nintendo’s first failed attempt to implement voice recognition in a game with Hey You, Pikachu! for the Nintendo 64, but despite the company’s past failure, Nintendo will package the mic accessory with Mario Party 6 when it’s released in North America December the 6th.