Sega to use Toshiba-developed speech synthesis technology

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"Toshiba announced today that it has signed a contract with Sega to provide its speech synthesis technology to the company for the next three years. Toshiba's speech synthesis technology is normally used for input assistance on PCs and car navigation systems, but Sega will be using the technology for its games. Toshiba explained that its speech synthesis technology, known for its small memory requirement, is convenient for game consoles. Its speech synthesis also complies with TTS (text to speech) standards and has the ability to analyze a human voice to imitate its tone and speech behaviors.

The first game by Sega that will use the technology will be its horse racing game sequel Derby Tsuku 3, which is scheduled for release this winter on the PlayStation 2 and GameCube in Japan. The announcer's voice in the game will be using the technology in order to pronounce the player's original horse names."

[-DARKSIDE-]

Sounds cool. I might just get it to make weird names to see if the announcer can pronounce it.

[IwaoHazuki]

I could see this technology being used for Shenmue III.

[Zhao]

Yeah. Instead of Ryo asking people questions. You could ask the questions.

[Shodan]

Seaman