No 3rd-Party Miis?
Can it be? The EA game MySims seems like a great candidate for some Mii interaction (and possibly a Mii upgrade, IMHO), but Nintendo isn't allowing any third party developers to access Mii integration tools for use in their games. Now, the MySims toons look so much like Miis that the decision begs the question: why not?
Well, Nintendo isn't exactly celebrated worldwide for its friendly attitude toward third parties, but perhaps it's just holding its cards close to its chest. Perhaps not. I've never been a fan of the whole Mii thing, since cutesy and pointless isn't really my bag and I'm not sure I want to play games where the cartoon version of my mother (she has a Mii...don't ask) could walk over into my MySims game and stand there, looking vaguely critical and a little drunk.
But Mommy issues aside, does the Mii dealie really need to be made less relevant? I'd think Nintendo would want to push the Mii channel as much as possible during this crucial post-launch scramble to develop more games before people inevitably lose interest in an empty sandbox wherein one may enjoy a limited sort of play with simulated dolls. $0.02.
Nintendo raining on EA's Mii Parade [WiiFanboy]
[via Aeropause]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 2 March 2007
· Comments (9)
Other stuff like this: 3rd-party miis, mii, nintendo, wii
It's weird... I keep hearing different things from developers about this. My guess is that most of them are just going on rumours too.
Eg. I've heard that they can only render Miis in game by feeding in a custom surface (?) and basically having Nintendo's functions do the work, and I've also heard that they can import Miis directly in some form. I don't know what the truth of the matter is. All I have to go on are overheard conversations and what little I can pry out of my game dev friends.
To be honest, I love the Miis and all, but if you're really gonna use them in 3rd party applications, they need to be a LITTLE more customizable. Again, I love the Mii concept, it's just that, well... EA's characters seem to have a little more... "character".
I'm hoping Nintendo gives the Miis just a little more "Me" in the future.
Another question: what's wrong with games that import someone's basic Mii data and create a game-specific character model that can be further customized? Or games that use the same Mii data for character models but allow playes to apply different artistic styles to their characters?
I can see the Big N not wanting others to tread on first-party turf, but they should at least allow third-party developers to take pre-set Mii data and run with it...
There's proprietary, and then there's anal-retentive.
Not surprising that our resident PS3 buyer wouldn't get the single most inviting feature of the Wii, whether it's too "kawaii" or not.
I was thinking about getting Mii Sims, but now that it's just My Sims I think I'll just wait for Animal Crossing.
No offense raindog, but you're the one who is being the fanboy here.
Even as a fan of the Wii, I have to agree with Tiny about the Mii concept. So far, its pretty much just cute and pointless. The only games I know of that they've been used in is Wii Sports and Wario Ware, and honestly they don't do much for either game. It's a little cool when they pop up, but so far Nintendo really hasn't done much with the little guys. They are not a strong selling point of the system and Nintendo's (possible) decision to keep them on only first-party products makes them even less relevant to the system.
Miis are used in the voting channel also.
I suppose they are somewhat Nintendo channels exclusives.
Its not need less or pointless to play arm-wrestling with Bob Dylan, Baseball with Beat Takeshi and Bowling with Yoko Ono. denial that this could be fun or entertaining is, at the very least, short-sighted IMHO.
I do like it when my Miis such as Grace Jones pop up in the background of Wario Ware. I wouldn't mind seeing that sort of thing in more games.
That having been said -- the Mii-building tools are kind of lame. Their simplicity seems to be begging for other games that allow you to customize them further.
This news is consistent with what I hear from developers: they can import a custom texture with the Mii's face, but they can't access the raw data (like body type, or eye placement) that builds the character.
I'm just guessing here, but maybe Nintendo doesn't want EA to have Miis in their Sims game because they'd like to reserve that feature for Wii Animal Crossing.