E308: Animal Crossing: City Folk confirmed [Update 2: First screens and date!]

Katsuya Eguchi's happy face just popped up on the giant screens at Nintendo's E3 2008 press conference to tell us that — quelle surprise! — Animal Crossing will be heading to the Wii this year, along with WiFi connectivity and voice chat.

Animal Crossing: City Folk's WiFi capabilities will allow players to exchange letters and pictures, bid on (and sell) items at a special in-game auction site, and check out the status of other players at the Happy Room Academy. There's also an option to slap a mask of your Mii on your avatar, and a bigger city area to scope around. But it's the "community microphone" feature — known as "WiiSpeak" — that will really grab headlines.

[Update 1: First screens in our gallery below]
[Update 2: Nintendo reckons we can expect this in the U.S. on November 16th! (thanks, Alvin)]

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