How does the Wii U chat work is it like the 360 where you can chat to anyone while playing any game or is it restricted to playing the same game

If you mean the video chat, it can not be used during gameplay (at least not yet). If you mean messages on Miiverse, you can post in any community and message any user regardless of which games you're playing.

i just mean normal voice chat dont care for video chat really

There's no sort of voice chat system other than the video chat. Any voice chatting has to be implemented by a developer, meaning it is tied to the game.

Which is annoying. It should be a standard for all consoles. It's the best thing about Xbox Live and means you can play multiple games with you friends, without the hassle of having to disappear between loading maps, starting games or even game changes. I really hope Nintendo sort something out soon.

Wow...that is retarded. I incorrectly assumed that Nintendo had finally joined the year 2005.

There's not a whole lot of big online titles for the U yet, I would assume this isn't a priority for them at the moment. It certainly can be added as a firmware update, but we don't even have an online first party game yet (mostly just some ports have online), so give them some time. Do you really need to voice chat with people while you play single player Nintendo Land?

Its nice to have the option to talk to people wile playing another game/single player.

Oh I agree, I'm not saying it's a bad feature, but Nintendo has their hands full with a lot right now, that feature can easily come in the next few months, I'm just saying it likely won't be considered until we get a bit more online games that will benefit from the feature.

Oh I also missed that this still isn't a "given" for a new console! ;(