Nintendo is again venturing into quirky hardware with the launch of ‘Talking Flower’, designed to act as a chatty desktop companion.

Inspired by the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wonder game, the interactive toy follows the company’s Alarmo alarm clock which launched last year.

As the name suggests, the Talking Flower talks, even when you’re not paying attention. Left alone, it will randomly speak a couple of times an hour, offering strange and amusing observations like “sometimes it’s nice to space out” or “is it weird for flowers to talk?”.

There’s a single button on the base. You can press it to trigger a random phrase or hold it down to silence the flower for a while. It can also play music, including familiar Mario-style sounds.

Despite its toy-like nature, the flower packs in a few smart features. It can be set to greet you in the morning or tell you to go to bed at night, with some phrases only appearing at certain times of day.

A built-in temperature sensor lets it comment on whether the room is warm or cold, and instead of a screen or LEDs, it will simply tell you when its batteries are running low. There’s no app, camera or microphone, it runs entirely on its own.

The Talking Flower supports 11 languages at launch, including English and Japanese. It will cost US$34.99 (Australian pricing yet to be confirmed).