Nintendo Dream(Japanese magazine) recently spoke with Shigeru Miyamoto about details concerning the Wii Remote’s speaker, the classic controller, left-handed gaming, and the various projects he is currently working on.

The internal speaker portion of the Wii Remote, announced at E3 2006, was previously considered for removal, Miyamoto claimed. “When we first started talking about the speaker, there was absolutely no reaction,” he explained, referring to those who were made aware of the feature within Nintendo.
However, the speaker gained acceptance as people heard it in action, specifically noticing how swinging the sword in Zelda sounded similar to swinging a Light Saber. Notions of dropping the feature were further quelled when third parties requested that it be left in.

Miyamoto elaborated on some of his game ideas that rely on the internal speaker. In one example the controller calls out a certain player’s name to indicate whose turn it is, while another idea has the controller giving out secret information to individual players.

Miyamoto talked about his experiments with the Wii Remote/Nunchuk combination which involved alternating the hands he uses for controlling the two devices. His outlook for left-handed gamers playing Wii was positive, noting that players can use either device in either hand no matter what game is played.
Miyamoto even expects kids with no previous gaming experience to hold the Wii Remote in their left hand, and the Nunchuk in their right.

In closing, Nintendo Dream asked Miyamoto what games he is directly involved in at this time.
He resisted giving an exact number, explaining that some remain unannounced, but conceded he’s working on “a lot of games”. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, and Wii Sports were specifically mentioned, as well as work on the project coined ‘Remote Pointer Demo’ from E3.

Miyamoto explained the origins of the secondary device and its name. When Nintendo first made demo units, the development staff referred to the device as a nunchuck simply because it looked like one.
Earlier in development, the Wii-mote was referred to as the “Core Unit.” The devices that attached to it were referred to as the “Peripheral Unit.” This naming originated when Nintendo came up with the idea of splitting the controller into separate units.

source: IGN

The Nintendo Wii controller will contain a small amount of memory, which can be written to by the console (via Bluetooth) during the game. This will usually be used to store small sound files which can be heard via the controller’s small internal speaker.

This system could be used, for example, to simulated the sound of gun shots coming from the controller when fired.

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