Mii gets its parade on

by David Hinkle { Oct 4th 2006 at 11:55AM }

The Mii channel has received a lot of coverage lately, mostly due to the fact that it's awesome. Some questions still surround the service, however. This is where the feature "Iwata Asks" comes in, where Iwata and several key players in the development of the Wii discuss the console. The latest installment focused on the Mii channel and feature one of the key developers of the tool, Mr. Nogami, former director of Animal Crossing DS.

"In fact, as long as the software developers make the games compatible with the Mii system, these characters will also be able to appear in the games they produce. One more interesting thing is that the Mii characters do not always feature as the main characters in the games," said Nogami. "You can also find them popping up as faces in the crowd. For instance, in Wii Sports, a Mii you made a while ago and had forgotten about might turn up one day in the spectators' seats. Also, since you can store Mii on your Wii Remote, you can bring your Mii to use on your friend's Wii!"

Nogami also goes on to discuss Mii Parade:

"To put it simply, Mii Parade is a system that uses the network to allow Mii characters created by many people to mix and mingle," said Mr. Nogami. "You can line up Mii characters in the 'Mii Plaza', but at the start the only Mii characters you will find are those you have created yourself. Over time, however, using the WiiConnect24 system, other users' Mii characters can come and visit. In the same way, your Mii can make an appearance on someone else's Wii, although this won't happen unless the user has authorized it. The user can choose whether or not to allow their Mii to come and go on the network, so the only Mii characters that will appear on someone else's Wii are those where the user has permitted it."

[Thanks Donny and Probot!]

Tags: mii, miichannel, nintendo, nintendowii, parade, wii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Dan @ Oct 4th 2006 12:22PM

Wicked! It really is a revolution, on so many levels.

adam @ Oct 4th 2006 12:29PM

i hope a friend code can be attached to a mii profile

thebigL @ Oct 4th 2006 3:50PM

I just don't understand what the point of Mii is. I mean it's like your own avatar but i don't see whats so amazing about it. I don't know if i'm missing any details about it.

Lemm @ Oct 4th 2006 5:05PM

@ #2

Seconded.
And yay for Mii on wii-mote

Justin @ Oct 4th 2006 5:34PM

That sounds awsome!!

It's so cool that your Mii can go and chill on other peoples consoles! What an awsome idea! And I love how I can take my Mii with me and go play at a friends. That introduces a new level of personification to the gaming avatar that we as gamers have never seen before. It's really a great way to connect the player to their game.

vidGuy @ Oct 4th 2006 6:12PM

@ thebigL

Miis are customizable avatars. Presumably they can be linked to user profiles, but they don't have to be. They are also much more. Miis will be used for games like Wii Sports, and Nintendo has made the coding available so any 3rd party game can incorporate Miis, too. They could be the main controllable character, or they could be in the crowd for games like Mario Strikers Charged.

Miis will likely have their own friend code, so when your Miis join someone else�s "parade", what will likely happen is your user profiles will exchange gamer codes. This allows the use of generic gamertags, like "John". Because no John is going to have the exact same attributes (physical features, clothing, sensitivity settings, friend code), you could have multiple "John"s on the system. Also, when you want to play John #1, you'll be able to choose his appearance, rather than select the gamertag.

The Mii concept is also very cute and fun. Nintendo hopes the image will appeal to everyone. I'm sure Nintendo has other plans for Miis, too.

fraxyl @ Oct 5th 2006 7:57AM

I'd always thought of the Mii as in reference to main playable characters, the thought that they can spectate in games that are programmed accordingly is pretty cool.

It'd be hilarious to create some type of creepy-guy Mii and set out to make him journey across the WiiConnect24 to disturb the world of Wii... or it could turn into some kind of Wii Celebrity thing or something.

I just hope that other developers besides Nintendo incorporate it into stuff... mind you, it definitely depends on the type of game. Big Brain Acadamy, yes. Red Steel... no. Excite Truck... perhaps.

Turken @ Oct 5th 2006 11:25AM

Sure, it would work for excite truck. Just have the game take your Mii face and slap it on the truck hood as a custom decal.

Or if not Excite Truck, maybe the next MarioKart. The "design your own logo" feature on Mario Kart DS was pretty nice for online play, except that people had too much freedom and inevitably when playing you would run into some immature idiot whose logo was a penis or racial slur or other offensive content. If the game just uses Miis though, there is enough variation to allow for individual expression, but a standard set of "parts" to cut out the potentially offensive stuff.

Mabui @ Oct 5th 2006 2:03PM

I think there is abit of potential in the whole Mii thing, I mean they could even use features of your mii in animal crossing (Though, hopefully not the body.) Just pasted right up onto your characters face, or even have Mii's visit or live randomly in your town with the other animals.

It would be even more interesting if Maxis made a Sims based around the Mii characters for some cheap download or inexpensive version of the game.

It could even be used in more realistic games where your characters face could appear on the main characters t-shirt or as some sort of odd side kick or computer interface helper.

Honestly, the possibilities are endless..