Nintendo's music-infused Alarmo clock came out more than a year ago and there's a new home companion from the always-unpredictable Nintendo this spring. This time it's a chatty home flower buddy, arriving March 12. It's $35, which is a fraction of what Alarmo costs, but is this talking flower going to help you wake up as reliably? Probably not, but it'll make weird comments all day long.
Talking Flower was teased last year and full details have cropped up today on Nintendo Talking Flower, a talking re-creation of the helpful/annoying/charming flowers that popped up all over the place in the Super Mario Wonder game. It's a little trumpet-headed potted flower that talks at you, not with you.
The flower doesn't have a screen or a microphone. It just talks. Sometimes it just says things twice an hour, but it can also be sort of helpful: It can remind you of bedtimes, tell the time, indicate room temperature, or act like an alarm clock. Nintendo's pre-order page says "it will announce the hour, (mostly accurately." Talking Flower is an unreliable narrator, it seems.
There's only one button on Talking Flower, which either triggers more random comments or can silence the thing for a while by pressing and holding for two seconds. (Good news, parents.) But there's also a "music mode" that summons the Mario Wonder music track from the game, and then pressing the button makes the flower say more things to the music.
It's weird that the flower has a thermometer inside, but hey, that's Nintendo -- it doesn't look like specific temperatures are noted, but it might say "it's colder today!" Also weird is trying to understand how this flower relates to Alarmo, a purely bed-focused Nintendo home product. You could put the flower anywhere, for any purpose. It's a collectible. And, most likely, get freaked out by it randomly talking out of nowhere.
And again, now that Nintendo's an entertainment company as focused on theme parks and films as game consoles and games, something like a talking flower makes sense. Seasonal souvenirs are Nintendo's bread and butter, and at least this one's closer to the price of an Amiibo than Alarmo.