(With apologies for the gratuitous use of alliteration in the title) The good folks over at WiiFanboy have posted an interesting question based on some recent quotes from the August issue of Nintendo Power. A survey in that issue supposedly asks as part of a Player’s Poll Sweepstakes:

Which of the following Wii control features or functions is of the greatest interest to you?

And then goes on to list the following as an option:

6. Compatibility with WaveBird for playing Gamecube titles.

It’s not clear exactly what that means - this could just mean that yes, the Gamecube controller ports on top of the Wii will be placed such that the Wavebird receiver still fits. However, it leads some folks to an interesting bit of speculation that perhaps the Wii could support the Wavebird controller without a receiver plugged in. Such functionality would definitely be a neat touch and would give the console a much cleaner look for Wavebird owners. Given that the Wavebird controllers use RF communication unlike the Wiimote, which uses Bluetooth, this would require a little extra engineering and probably some more FCC approval. Still I for one hope that Nintendo realized what a good idea this could be.