"I would not be surprised to see that capability come to this system," Fils-Aime said in a conference call this morning.

Though Nintendo is known for its overly protective online safety measures, such as dictating that users first exchange and enter a series of random digits to communicate with one another, the company has already made inroads into online voice chat with the Nintendo DS.

Released in early 2006, NST's Metroid Prime: Hunters (NDS) allowed gamers that had swapped friend codes to speak to one another. Other games, including Game Freak-developed, Nintendo-published Pokemon Pearl (NDS) and Pokemon Diamond (NDS), supported the capability as well, with Nintendo eventually releasing a specialized headset to facilitate communication.