Soapbox features enable our individual writers to voice their own opinions on hot topics, opinions that may not necessarily be the voice of the site. In this piece, editor Dom takes a look back on the forgotten first child of Nintendo's mobile marriage and why its surprisingly the semi-social network even survived this long...
The poor old Mii is a dying breed. Once envisioned as a personal analogue for Nintendo’s hardcore audience - and the influx of the mainstream that followed Wii’s success like a tidal wave - the cutesy avatars are slowly but surely dwindling in number. You can see still find them living bizarre lives in Tomodachi Life, engaging in epic quests in Miitopia or milling about in Mii Plaza on 3DS, but they’re far from the energetic haunts they once were. Even Nintendo Switch has kept them at arm’s length, using them for mere profile pictures at best.
Taking all of this into account, it was hardly a shocker to hear Nintendo officially announce that the Miitomo app, the big N’s debut first-party experiment in the monster-filled deep of the mobile market, will be put to the digital sword on the 9th of May - just over two years after its initial launch. It was a gamified app built with the best of intentions, but it was years behind the times and remained popular and relevant for less time than the average meme.
Thing is, Miis were never that cool to begin with anyway, and beyond the enduring appeal of StreetPass, they’ve always felt like an over-simplified attempt to give the social media generations a Nintendo-themed identity when playing something in 3D or with motion controls. Right down to their looks they were indicative of Nintendo’s appeal to that casual mainstream - all blocky haircuts and minimalist expressions - and when all that red hot hype for Wii finally cooled, the Mii’s appeal went stone cold with it.
I’ll give Nintendo its due - there were some interesting ideas at work in Miiverse, but being tied to console like Wii U was a slow death in itself. When its servers were finally switched off last November, the real sense of loss was for the social space itself rather than the bland avatars that roamed its ever lonelier rooms. So it was only a matter of time before Nintendo looked at all its current first-party efforts and officially-licensed successes and accepted Miitomo was never going to be one of them.
As a lifelong Nintendo fan, even I felt my initial curiosity begin to crystalize as I tried to find some sense of appeal in Miitomo’s remit. Everyone I knew had downloaded it and we were all genuinely excited to see Nintendo doing the impossible and developing a game outside of its own hardware. It certainly had its hype - 3 million users in 24 hours and 10 million within a month is nothing to sniff at. It was fun, for a brief time, but there was too much limitation and far too little innovation, and those numbers started to thin. It should have been a revelation; instead it was a stunted attempt to be one part AskFM to two parts Facebook. An oversimplified concept made worse by the intrinsic babyish-ness of the Mii itself.
You could only pose/respond to questions; you couldn’t create your own content; you couldn’t even use GIFs. How I meant to use a form of social media if I can’t respond to someone’s post without my go-to deck of pictorial quips? And what about that friends list limitation which prevented you from adding too many contacts, something which surely flies in the face of social media in general? Okay, I may have gone full hipster there for a moment, but you get where I'm coming from. It’s no wonder everyone scarpered after a while.
Nintendo thought it was onto a winner - take the team that worked its magic on Tomodachi Life and attempt to capture the same lightning in a bottle (that just happens to be shaped like a social media timeline). Perhaps Ninty felt the brand association of the word ‘Mii’ and the use of social media would be enough of winning combination to ensure success. If only it had taken note of all those other social media apps that have unwisely attempted to usurp Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or the fact the Mii ‘brand’ lost its relevance years ago.
Whatever the reasoning truly was, Nintendo has finally taken off its rose-tinted glasses and seen Miitomo for what it’s always been - a cute little experiment that was destined to fail from the start. And we should count ourselves lucky - Miitomo’s inferior concept could have scared Nintendo off mobile gaming for good. Thankfully, it stuck it out and worked with Niantic to make Pokémon GO a success that’s still going in 2018, as well as giving us Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp - all more worthy downloads.
Godspeed, Miitomo. We hardly knew you. Mainly because we didn’t really want to.
That's Dom's take on Miitomo, now it's over to you. Let us know your thoughts on Miitomo, how long you played for, whether you ever went back, and if you'll miss it when it disappears for good on 9th May. Go on, drop us a comment or two...
Comments 64
They killed Miiverse and that was good. So what chance did Miitomo stand? Hell, Club Nintendo will be brought up here, another decent service in retrospect despite the shortcomings was assassinated.
I always saw Miitomo as an ask.fm clone, and one I was compelled to do from the start because weirdly, and unlike any of their consoles, it had no filtering or censorship whatsoever. You could use all the cusses you want all day and nobody would stop you, unless they reported you or something. So it was really weird to me that while all the early questions were answered by my friends with the crassest things you could imagine, absolutely everyone answered the question about their favorite kind of bread completely straight without any snark.
Nintendo is good at making fun games.
They should make fun games, and ignore the things they aren't good at (or hire it out to someone else) which includes online/social media stuff.
Make games.
I'm gonna miss Miitomo.
Nintendo better maintain Mii avatar for Switch games in the future.
Social interaction has never been one of Nintendo‘s strong suits. This was an idea that was OK on paper, but executed very poorly. It relied far too heavily on interaction with actual people, and if you didn’t know enough people with the game (who were willing to play it regularly), it was a stale, repetitious daily login that wasn’t any fun at all after a couple days.
What I can’t seem to understand is why Nintendo has to pull the plug on it entirely. I understand not supporting it with new content, but allowing the app to still function offline beyond May would only be fair, so that people who have invested time and money in collecting outfits and decor can still enjoy them to some extent...
I like the Miis for video games. I mean, I could play Wii bowling with the cast of The Big Lebowski. What's not to like?
I liked miitomo, but my issue was I had little to no friends that were interested in using it. I tried to convince some to download it and create their own mii but I never got past 9 friends. I really did like how you could create a character and it would be the same character for my.nintendo. I hope Nintendo incorporates something like this with your Switch Profile.
Next up is probably the Wii U online servers...
I’ve downloaded both Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem for my iPhone but they never really caught my attention. Miitomo did.
I guess Miitomo had a really rocky start, as it should have been launched everywhere at once. The lack of users was a problem and as almost no one invited their friends to download the app, I can see why it’s being shut down.
I am, however, crushed. It really is my favorite mobile app, I’ve had so much fun with it. I always answer “today’s featured question” and I’ve ansvered more than 500 questions since I got the app. I liked the feature that let you add a photo to your reply, it was an awesome addition and made answers more interesting. I know many people never cared for Miitomo, but I loved it.
I will hope for a similar return on the Switch, although none of my current Miitomo friends owns a Switch. And I don’t see them ever getting one. The Switch is obviously popular, but for me it has been a disappointment and I don’t see people who aren’t hardcore Nintendo fans getting one - ever. I live the in Norway, people have PS4 and PC’s for gaming. I get strange looks for just looking at Nintendo games in stores, it’s the “looser” part of the store and I look like a normal woman. Pokémon for Switch is really the only thing that will force people to get one. If they don’t like it enough to talk all their friends into buying one, the Switch will not fly as the 3DS did. That’s how the 3DS got big here, and StreetPass helped make that happen.
@Grumblevolcano yeah, I fear you are correct. Let’s hope they will let it be for another 6 months...
I actually have a question in regards to this matter: when this app gets shut down what will happen to our Mii profile pictures? Will those revert to their looks from the Nintendo hardware or will they keep any clothes obtained in Miitomo?
Why are they Doing this are they crazy!
Honestly...I only used it to farm Platinum Points back when I thought they would be useful. Silly silly me.
I always use my Mii for MK8D, my Switch Profile and occasionally in AC: New Leaf.
I'm pretty attached to the little guy. ☺️
At least I hope no one bought outfits with real money
@Grumblevolcano They probably have to kill Wii U servers once the paid online goes into effect. Why pay to play online Splatoon 2 and MK8D when you can play Splatoon and MK8 online for free? And I think SSB4D will finally appear when the paid online does to motivate people to pay.
Now I do know Sony let's me play online for free on my PS3 but charges on my PS4, but Nintendo isn't Sony. PS3 still has some PS+ support 4 years after the PS4blaunch, I was looking at Sacred 3 today, but Wii U will barely make a year. Zelda and that's about it.
Every company has a weakness, and for Nintendo it's anything to do with socializing over the magic of the internet.
They just don't get it, probably never will... and that's ok. I mean, it's not ok, but it kinda has to be because they're not gonna change. So screw it.
I really hate how they give you colored hair options in the Switch Mii Maker.
This also reflected in Breath Of The Wild, where you can color your horse's tail and mane.
Ugh.
@8-Bit_Zorldo "Hey, but now we have My Nintendo in its stead, so that's.... something..."
Aargh!
Godspeed Miitomo, Godspeed...
Miifotos fur those who memed a lot on answer central = FEELZ
I think I played miitomo for a week then never touched it again. The only thing I remember about it was Nintendo said it would launch in March, but never gave a actual date. As the days went by, I was wondering when it would come out. Finally it came out... March 31. Forever, I will remember that release date.
@8-Bit_Zorldo
#WiiUMiisWereBest
I love Miis and I hope that Nintendo continues to utilise them in future (even if they are nowhere near as commonplace as they used to be). I was contemplating how Nintendo could continue the Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Wii Party brands, and by God, it makes so much sense, I feel like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner...
Mii! (e.g. Mii Sports, Mii Fit, Mii Party).
I just want a new Wii/Mii Sports and Fit game so, so, so badly.
Good no sense wasting resources on failures. KILL IT WITH FIRE
Well written. Agree totally with the last lines. I never bothered trying it out as it looked as boring as you describe.
Some analyst in Japan was also going off at how crappy this app was and that Nintendo should’ve shut it down months ago.
miitomo was cool. 'nuff said, will miss it
Good article.
I used it for about a month, mostly to farm platinum coins, but I quit when it became too boring to keep up and the coins weren't worth much anyway. I'm sitting on a large pile with nothing to spend them on.
Not sure why this is a surprise. Miitomo was garbage on day 1. As per usual Nintendo hype hides the reality of the product. Watch this happen with labo, the next hot garbage, literally Nintendo printed on cardboard origami with a game app no better than 1 2 switch or Nintendo land. Watch it flop .
I've been logging in daily for a while just playing the drop minigame with free log in bonuses. I feel like the game would've lasted longer if you didn't have to know people irl and could interact with the entire community. Would've also been nice for it to have some sort of connectivity with the switch online app or adding clothes to your miis on the switch for future games.
@Phle You deserve a Heart on your comment for being so passionate and positive about something that a lot of people have been negative about!
I really enjoyed it for the first couple of months, when the daily rewards made it worthwhile (when you could get away without spending anything); but it soon became repetitive, a lot of my friends gave up on it, and it ended up taking up over a GB of space on my phone, so it had to go. :/
Yeah, I remember when it first came out. I played with it a few times, and haven't picked it up since. To be honest, I found it to be incredibly boring for an app.
Not only was it boring, I was running it on an iPhone 4, which was barely able to handle the game (albeit at an incredibly reduced performance rate).
I personally don't even consider it a game, but more of a social app. In all honesty, I think something like Miiverse made more sense as a social app than Miitomo.
But in terms of custom avatars, I do wish Nintendo would still have them, but make them more diverse in their customization than Miis were. Only on the Switch can I finally have a Mii with blue hair.
They don't have to keep the Mii on future systems, or even the Switch, but they should still have some sort of custom avatar for people who want them.
And they don't even have to be human-looking. Wouldn't it be cool to have a custom avatar based on a Star Fox character, for example? And you could use it in games? I'd like that very much.
I would have liked for them to maintain the minigames offline- I rather liked the arcade plinko Mii drop-type games you could win costumes in.
The saddest part about this is that Miis are now officially dead in games... Unless Nintendo makes a Mii game for the Switch which seems extremely unlikely... I'll miss them
@Phle I echo sentiments that I thought Miitomo was a really fun little app, even though most of my friends didn't jump aboard. I ended up friending random people based off of other friends/suggested friends, and found a semi active group of like 10 people to keep things interesting (as a fair number of them would change their costumes on a weekly basis or so). Having the different people allowed me to make some nice Miifotos, and enjoy seeing how they costumed their mii's. A few times I made Miifoto comic pictures to reply to their answers, not sure if they ever saw them, but I had fun doing it.
That said, I assume you're still checking Miitomo out now? From now till the end, they look to be giving out 2,000 coins and 5 Tickets EACH DAY till the end! It's a great time to collect items and give Miitomo one last final hurrah.
Also, I liked Miitomo a lot for Miifoto. I'm pretty sure the app will fully be turned off when May rolls around, so I plan to get tons of items, snap lots of photos, and save them off to my device until then! (I have a few Miitomo pics on it if you'd like to see them: https://nintendofanyes.deviantart.com/ )
Best use of Miis so far: Smash bros. Seeing your avatar beat the crap out of others, now thats something.
I tried it for a day and realized it wasn't worth it. I logged in for about 2 months for My Nintendo rewards and then realized those weren't worth it, either.
I liked Miitomo a lot. Yes, it's very different from the usual Nintendo games, but we're talking about a Smartphone app here.
Aside from that, it relies too much on the activity from your friends (or strangers you met on the internet). Which isn't that bad, I played Miitomo for a year and I had a great time with it. Now it's gone and I don't mind.
I'm very curious though how much money went into Miitomo and how much it earned.
It made my phone feel hot. Fun for the first month but then forgotten
@DeltaPeng Yes, I’ll be using Miitomo until the end. I have bought so much clothes already (my wardrobe is scary), but I guess I’m going to spend the extra coins and game tickets for fun 😌
@Fuz I like Miis too, but I have a feeling Nintendo will keep them around. You can use your Mii as a profile picture on the Switch and I think that says Nintendo aren’t getting rid of them, at least not entirely. I just think they’ll make it easier to avoid them for those who doesn’t like them 😌
I suppose it was decent if you wanted to know what bread your friend liked, the only who also had the app. Who am I kidding, I didn't even have one friend who also had the Miitomo app.
Hopefully Nintendo have learned a lesson: nobody wants turd apps from them.
I am going to stick with my same line as usual, Nintendo are right and everyone else is wrong. The social world stinks and is inappropriate for anybody below the age of 16, which is one of Nintendo's strongest areas.
The whole industry needs to wake up and see what they are doing to kids, allowing chat and adult content so freely accessible is against the law in so many other formats but because the game companies are not the one putting it out there selves they think there excused.
Saying that Nintendo don't know what there doing with regard to social media is wrong, they are protecting users from inappropriate content. And yes they do get moaned at for it!!
I've always liked Miis as a bridge between the player's real world identity and a universal in-game avatar. For casual games that aren't dependant on a consistent world (ex: Animal Crossing, Mariokart, etc) they're a perfect fit. The idea of having a consistent avatar to take into all kinds of games when you play is appealing, though I do feel they should have added more customization features as time went on. Maybe some clothing outside of miitomo too, and people would have cared more.
What a grumpy and miserly article. Miitomo was flawed, but Miis in general, and Miiverse, were great.
I'm not saying it was a great game, but I have my fun with it, still use it on a daily basis and will be sad to see it go. I suppose when you look at it in this perspective it was Ninty dipping it's little toe into the world of social Mii-dia. The concept was OK but badly needed development. The best thing about it was creating Mii-mes and pics, and chatting to mates and the community - where will we go now? Nintendo ur killing Mii.
Miitomo was pretty useless but strangely fun IMHO. It was cute and weird and I loved that. It made me buy a switch so thats some return on investment. Too bad they are pulling the plug.
I don't get the hate or snarky-ness for Miitomo. If it wasn't for you, that's fine. I loved it. Helped me and my 'Net friends connect. A lot of the questions were fun to reflect upon. The games and outfits had quirky charm that only Nintendo could produce. Nor did I expect Miitomo to last forever. It ran its course. I do not think we need to now spit on its grave.
I liked it personally but I can see its limitations and it was really designed as a entry point for nintendo to dip its foot into mobile. it succeeded in that.
I'm sad because this means that my custom Super Mario Run Mii is going to vanish completely.
I'd have been okay if they eventually brought Miitomo over to Switch, and allowed you to dress up your Mii and chat with your friends through the console in any way at all, right now all you can do is see when someone is online/playing a game....and you know, stare at their profile image.
Ah well. Utter rubbish anyway.
Seeing this reminds me of reading somewhere about nintendo was supposed to have more shipments of the NES Classic and the SNES Classic this year but I haven't seen anymore on the subject !
Miitomo was great using, had good friends, we were able to know each other better with it, a fine creation of Nintendo's it had been, though there had been some flaws such as with how Frustrating it can be with going what you're after in Miitomo Drop. Hope someday that Miitomo can have itself a successor. Sure Mobile games have a closing point and come to a stage of being unusable, but it's nice that some can have Successors at some point. Surely Nintendo wouldn't do only one Mobile Game per franchise with how they take care of Mobile Games.
@CuriousUserX90 For the first time I'm getting a good amount of Signatures to one of my Petitions, thanks to the generous people I've known in Miitomo: https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-please-do-give-miitomo-a-successor-someday
I feel like Miis have died largely because Nintendo stopped supporting them with the Switch. Yes, they still exist, sort of, but most for ports and legacy content. In my opinion, instead of axing them, they should have overhauled and upgraded them. More creativity and customization options would have kept people using them.
As for Miitomo... It wasn't a game. Just a weird, repetitive, semi-social app that failed to hold people's attentions.
Sooo, that dies quick. Didn't bring them much money then.
"Thankfully, it stuck it out and worked with Niantic to make Pokémon GO a success that’s still going in 2018"
Pokemon Go is just as dead, at least in Holland. No wonder, the weather is always rubbish over here!
I have no interest in Mario Run, FE Heroes, and AC Pocket Camp, but at least they are actual competent games that have helped increase awareness for the Mario, Fire Emblem, and Animal Crossing IPs. Miitomo is barely a game, and it doesn't promote awareness for any of Nintendo's relevant IPs.
I still think a Tomodachi Life sequel starring Miis on Switch could work, not because the Miis are relevant gaming characters/avatars, but because it's a quirky life-sim that appeals to the Japanese and European gaming audience.
Miitomo got to be pretty boring pretty fast, but I did love the Miifoto functionality of it. I made a lot of really funny Mii pictures with that.
The way I look at it, Miitopia is pretty much a farewill to Miis (that apparently never ends....)
I wish Nintendo would keep them around.
I have 3000+ on my 2DS XL MiiVerse! I am not letting it go. I worked harder to get that than my Masters.
@bolt05 Wanna make a bet on that one? I say Labo will be a great success. How about it?
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...