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Mii Spotlight: Take a look inside
It's Saturday, and obviously, that means another week in the Mii Spotlight! This week, however, we offer something a little different than our usual fare. Or, depending on how you look at things, it could be seen as exactly the same as our usual fare. Decide for yourself!
Mii City, Population: These Guys
Having broken out of the Mii channel's sterile confines, these characters were spotted at Canada's Anime North convention last May. One can only imagine what costumed horrors the blue-shirted Mii was subjected to that would leave his face in a permanent state of fright -- a heavyset guy with a ZZ Top beard dressed as Sailor Moon? Or a muscly Batman gyrating in a pair of speedos? Check past the post break for another photo of these two Miis hamming it up for the camera.
Kochalka not too cool for Miis
We hear a lot about mainstream coverage of the Wii, but what about non-mainstream coverage? The Mii Channel is so much fun that even indie cartoonist James Kochalka wants in on the "HEY LOOK AT MY MIIS" fun, posting a series of Mii creations to his diary comic American Elf .His Mii creations veer toward the monsterish, which we enjoy. So many people limit their Mii designs to themselves, their grandparents, and celebrities. Unless these Miis are meant to represent Kochalka's family, in which case we're very, very sorry.We also love how the Mii Channel has resurrected the practice of sharing photographs of TV screens. It makes us nostalgic for magazine high-score columns.
We want more Miis (Wii annoyance #012)
When we first read in the Wii manual that "up to 100 Miis can stay in your Mii Plaza," we weren't overly concerned. After all, how many different oblong-headed caricatures do you need on one system. Now that we're actually bumping up against the Mii limit after only a few months of use, though, we can't help but be annoyed at what seems to be an arbitrary restriction. Granted, most Wii users probably won't fill up their Mii channel quite this quickly. We're both blessed and cursed with friends whose obsession with Mii creation leads to new arrivals in our Mii plaza every other day. And sure, we could probably stand to clean out some of the less inspired Mii examples in favor of some of the dozens interesting creatures running around our Mii parade. But why should we have to? We have hundreds of blocks of space left on our Wii's internal memory, and nothing much to do with it unless we suddenly decide to download Urban Champion. It should only take a relatively simple system update to let us fill that unused space with hundreds more Miis -- enough to create a Where's Waldo? style scene of Mii inasanity. Even if technical issues prevent showing that many Miis on one screen, the over-100 excess could be placed in seperate rooms in the Mii plaza. We know we've had some harsh words for the Mii channel in the past, but really there's no limit to our enjoyment of the little character maker. That is, of course, except for the limit Nintendo places on it. Free the Mii Channel from your self-imposed shackles, Nintendo. You have nothing to lose but your chains. PS3 delights vs. PS3 annoyancesWii delights vs. Wii annoyancesXbox 360 delights vs. Xbox 360 annoyances
Mii Channel misses (Wii annoyance #008)
Don't get us wrong, we love the Mii Channel. We've spent hours tinkering around making versions of ourselves, our friends, our families, celebrities, strangers, that homeless man on the corner in front of our house, etc. Good times. But for all the fun of avatar creation, there are a few niggling issues with the system that we'd like to see addressed. More face building options - I know Nintendo claims there are, like, a gazillion possible unique Miis to be made on the Mii Channel, but despite the wide array of selectable facial features, there are still some important things missing. The first thing I noticed when trying to make a Mii version of myself was the lack of sideburns, meaning my Mii doesn't look a lot like me. Some of the other face parts, like the nose, lips and eyebrows, could also use more options to choose from. A Mii Lobby - Why is there no way for me to share my Miis with people besides those who I actively register as friends? I want to be able to free my Miis to roam the world at large, and I don't mean by uploading a picture to some online clearing house. And I want to be able to download Miis from strangers who choose to share them in some sort of Wii-accessible, searchable online database. I know your worried about little Johnny coming across a Mii named "PenisMan" or something, but parental controls can prevent this from being an issue. Editing others Miis: So my friend makes a Mii version of himself and sends it over. It's perfect in every way, except the mouth is a little too high. In an ideal world, I'd make a quick edit and send it back to my friend, possibly with a note making fun of his low-hanging mouth. Instead, I try to edit the Mii and get an annoying message telling me "you can't edit Miis you didn't create." I can understand not wanting to let people plagiarize other people's Miis, but it doesn't seem too hard to add an "originally created by" area to acknowledge the original Mii creator while still allowing for people to build on the works of others. We know the Mii Channel can be updated through the Wii's system update function. So how about it, Nintendo, how about making an already great feature even better?PS3 delights vs. PS3 annoyancesWii delights vs. Wii annoyancesXbox 360 delights vs. Xbox 360 annoyances
Mii gets its parade on
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!]
