Mii

For other uses of the word, see Mii (disambiguation)

A Mii (IPA: [miː]) is a digital avatar which can be made on the Wii's Mii Channel. After creating them, they can be used as participating characters in certain Mii-oriented games, such as Wii Sports. Miis are highly customizable and allow the user to capture in likeness or caricature the personality of themselves and others on the Wii through creating Miis.

A single Wii Console can hold up to 100 Miis. In addition, the Wii Remote can hold up to 10 Miis on its internal memory, which can later be transferred to another Wii Console. In addition, Miis can also be exchanged via WiiConnect24. Miis transferred to another console cannot be edited from that particular console.

Creating Miis

At the 2007 Game Developers Conference, at his lecture, Shigeru Miyamoto explained that the design and look of the Mii's was based on Kokeshi dolls, a form of Japanese doll given as souvenirs in Japan.

Miis are created through the Mii Channel on the Wii. After specifying a gender for the Mii in question, the user can alter the shape of the Mii's head, its eyes, hair, eyebrows, nose, and mouth. In addition, the creator can give the Mii glasses or facial hair as he/she desires, or give the face sharp contours, wrinkles, or ruddy cheeks, among other attributes. Many of the features can be fine-tuned by adjusting their size, position, and inward rotation to the center of the Mii's face. The Mii's height and width can be adjusted using slide bars, and using the on-screen keyboard, the creator can name the Mii, assign it a birthday, give it a favorite color (that color becomes the color of its shirt), and designate it as one of the 10 favorites, in which the Mii's pants change from black to red.

Usage of Miis by the Wii

See List of Wii games using Miis for a complete list of games that use Miis

Miis are intended to be an extension of the player, and in keeping with this spirit, the user can use them in several Nintendo titles for the Wii. Wii Sports is perhaps the most well-known example of this, and it adds a further personal touch to Miis by saving game statistics and records for them. Even if the user created Miis had never participated in any game as players, the Miis will make cameo appearances as CPU controlled opponents, teammates or audience. Many Wii players, especially children, enjoy seeing familiar faces of their personal friends in the game.

When users communicate with other Wii owners across the world using the Wii Message Board, they can attach a Mii to the sent message as a form signature so that the recipients can quickly identify the sender by the Mii on the envelope of the message. A Mii can only be attached to messages sent to another Wii console, the feature is disabled when sending to regular email accounts on computers or cell phones.

Miis are primarily used to in the Wii series of games, such as Wii Sports and Wii Play being examples. Players can also use their Miis, however, in other games, most noticeably in WarioWare: Smooth Moves, and the upcoming Mario Party 8. The Sega game Pachinko: Sammy's Collection is also noticeable in that it will be the first third-party game to incorporate Miis.

Transferring Miis vs. Travelling Miis

There are two major ways to transfer a Mii. By transferring up to ten Miis on your Wii Remote, then taking your Remote to another Wii Console (possibly a friend), then by connecting your Remote to their Console, your Miis are now accessible to their Mii Channel in a quite amusing "Mii Parade". This allows your Miis to communicate, or mingle, with the Console's Miis.

A different way to transfer Miis is the new WiiConnect24 feature, which allows you to share Miis via the Internet. For example, if you want to see a Mii created by a penpal from China, they'll send one to you and you can send another to them. It is a form of entertainment some call "Mii-mail".

If the console owner enables WiiConnect24 and turns on a "travel" option in the Mii Channel, he/she allows random Miis from the Internet to come to the Mii Parade on the local console; likewise, individual Miis on the local console with the "Mingle" flag turned on are allowed to travel over the Internet to join the Mii Parade on other Wii consoles. Unlike the two targeted transfer mechanisms mentioned earlier, there is no control over where these Miis would wander. There is no record on where a clone of your Miis have gone nor where the random Miis in your parade come from. Hence there is a slight privacy concern because the avatar's design and its name are being shared. The console owner has the option to leave any travelling Miis in his/her Mii parade or move them into the Mii Plaza on the local console. There is also an option to remove any Miis from the parade if their names and/or looks are found to be offensive. It is unknown if these travelling Miis are filtered by the staffs at www.wii.com to ensure the names are decent for children to read.

Trivia

Shigeru Miyamoto stated at 2007's Game Developer's Conference that the design of the Mii was inspired by the Kokeshi, a Japanese souvenir.

References

Mii Channel at Nintendo.com