I would imagine that the chat functions will be reliant upon the microphone or the stylus. Personally, I'm not terribly excited about those aspects of the machine, but I think it's a good idea that Nintendo included them. It does a lot to show that the big N isn't just some hulking dinosaur that can't adapt with the times.
I'm psyched as hell to see what sort of crazy stuff people come up with for this thing. It's gonna be fucking awesome.