March 20^th, 2006 (2:13pm) - In an interview with Nintendo Europe (exclusively in the site’s VIP section), Vivarium’s Yoot Saito confirms that the studio is currently in development with a title for the platform that will utilize its built-in microphone function, as well as the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

Saito comments:

"The Nintendo DS is a wonderful handheld. I’m glad it comes with a built-in microphone. That’s why we have things planned for it. We’re working on a different title right now that will use the network and microphone, but unfortunately I can’t really discuss it yet."

Vivarium is responsible for the cult favorite Seaman for the SEGA Dreamcast, a game that utilized a microphone that allowed for players to interact with a man-faced fish who would bad-mouth and belittle you.

Fans of the Dreamcast game have been clamoring for a new Seaman for years and its likely that Vivarium’s mystery DS game could very well be a new version, or at least something very much like it. Hopefully, we’ll here more about the game at E3 this May.

Interesting fact:

Vivarium’s Seaman had actually been inspired by a canned project from Nintendo’s own Shigeru Miyamoto.

Years ago, Miyamoto had been working on an interesting project for the Nintendo 64’s DD add-on by the name of Cabbage. Cabbage had been a gardening/virtual pet game in which players grew a vegetable in a ground, one with a face on it that would interact with players through the use of a microphone. Unfortunately, the project was never fully realized. However, Yoot Saito saw the project and was inspired to create a virtual pet game much like it, yet with an attitude. This game was Seaman.