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REVIEW: MIITOMO (iOS/Android)

11/4/2016

12 Comments

 
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Social networking, eh. What's that all about? Clearly, it's as much a curse as a blessing, and surely we're all in desperate need of a new approach.

I mean, I barely do anything on Facebook these days, and my feed typically seems to be the same half a dozen people talking, or showing off, about the same four or five things: babies, politics, music, holidays, running. Which is fine and everything, but it has started to feel restrictive and reductive, because nobody else is saying anything. It's a bit boring.

Unlike some, I enjoy it when people post the minutiae of their lives on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - like we all did in the early days, before people started blocking us for it. So long as it isn't all showing off or whingeing, it's nice to read about and see what people are doing, what they're thinking, or feeling, or what they've bought.

​Isn't that what social networking was for? Yet often we criticise those who do that, to the point where they become too paralysed, for fear of being accused of digital narcissism. These days, too many of us are too afraid to share, for what it might bring about in return.

Step forward Nintendo.

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THE NEW NORMAL
I wouldn't normally review a social media app on here, but obviously Miitomo is different; it's the first Nintendo product in many, many years to appear beyond the confines of Nintendo's own hardware.

​It's potentially a signpost to the future of the company, an indication - even as it heads towards the release of its next standalone console - that Nintendo might not have total faith in its ability to continue as a hardware manufacturer.

Consequently, it's a pigeon step. Rather than release the obvious Mario game, it utilises the company's Mii characters to find a new way to get people to interact with one another. As a result, it's welcoming to Nintendo fans, and doesn't alienate newcomers. It's establishes a Nintendo way of doing things, a sort of primer in the Nintendo philosophy.

There are shades of Animal Crossing and Tomodachi Life here, a demonstration of how Nintendo can take established formats - as it did with Splatoon, for instance - and feed it through its own filter. In this case, it's Nintendo doing Facebook or Twitter.  Indeed, finding friends is a simple case of linking Miitomo to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
In Miitomo you create a character, then you answer questions about yourself - what did you last eat, or buy, or what you might think about dolphins - while dressing up your customised Mii in various outfits.

Your Mii then autonomously interacts with the Miis of other people - they might just wander into your house to tell you something random about them. These interactions earn you coins, which can be spent on new outfits, or wacky mini games. And yes, that mention of coins might set alarm bells ringing: we're in freemium territory, and there's a limit to how fast you can generate coins without spending real money.


The most significant success of Miitomo is how Nintendo-y it feels. That's going to be important for the company going forward. It proves that Nintendo games work on hardware that isn't Nintendo's own.

Whether Miitomo becomes a success is something that can only really be judged long-term. Already, I'm getting slightly bored by answering questions, and dressing up my Miis. The app might also prove too idiosyncratic and bizarre to have real wide-ranging appeal. When Facebook and Twitter work, it's because of how unobtrusive and open they are. Miitomo by comparison funnels you down certain paths, chooses the topics for you.  

Once the novelty of creating weird-looking characters, getting them to speak aloud whatever filth your mind can conjure, or pose them for strange pictures - arguably the most fun it offers, in how it seems tailored to creating meme-like images - it feels slight.

​SUMMARY: Very, very Nintendo-y, but long term appeal remains to be seen.
​SCORE: 6 likes out of 10.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
​NINTENDO: WILL WE ALL BECOME MIITOMO SAPIENS? BY MR BIFFO
13 THINGS THAT MIGHT'VE INSPIRED THE NINTENDO NX CONTROLLER

NINTENDO NX AND PLAYSTATION VR: A TALE OF TWO TECHNOLOGIES - BY MR BIFFO
12 Comments
Gaijin10do
11/4/2016 12:52:27 pm

I dislike how you are limited to 10 characters for your username.
I find it a bit exhausting, because things appear on your feed when new people join and comment on friends posts. I can imagine it would become signal to noisey.

Reply
MrPSB
11/4/2016 01:06:51 pm

Fannies

Reply
Russell link
11/4/2016 01:38:22 pm

It's....ok.

I can't see any reason to keep earning coins other than to buy the clothes and play the games, but the games only earn you clothes anyway. So it's a straight trade-off of coins to clothes, and if you're not that fussed about clothes, then where does that leave you?

Naked, alone and sobbing, or more likely, just dressed in one of the three outfits you initially buy and then abandon.

Nintendo have tried to encourage you to like clothes by making it one of your daily missions to change outfits, but the reward for your clothes-based indecisiveness is crushingly another in-game currency of points. Which you can use to buy coins.

The 'game' has to fall back on its charm of finding out what your friends have to say on certain topics, but even then, reviewing answers becomes a tedious click-fest as you review your Recent Answers feed, and then click the comments, and then scroll down to the latest comment, and then click back, and then scroll down to the next answer and then smash your face into your phone and open Twitter instead.

Reply
Clive Peppard
11/4/2016 01:58:41 pm

I have a Mii on a Wii (bought for the wife to weigh herself after a baby cos normal scales wouldnt do) is this transferable?

Reply
Chris
11/4/2016 02:33:50 pm

No. You can transfer from a 3DS (and presumably a Wii U), but when I bought my 3DS I had to recreate my Mii as there was no way to transfer it. As the Wii has long been abandoned by Nintendo, that's most likely still the case.

Reply
Clive Peppard
11/4/2016 03:41:42 pm

My MII looked JUST like me though :(

colincidence link
12/4/2016 09:13:26 am

Then use the same Mii parts the same way.

Chris
11/4/2016 02:39:53 pm

I'm finding it strangely addictive. I particularly like the fact the clothes are unisex. It means all the male Miis in my feed are sporting miniskirts or - weirdly - just underwear. I was wearing a nice dress myself for the past few days.

Reply
LeighDappa
12/4/2016 05:58:14 am

😲

Reply
Iain Duncan-Smith
12/4/2016 06:08:40 pm

Zippy bums Nintendo. Physically.

Reply
Zippy
12/4/2016 07:33:11 pm

You little shit!

Reply
Dirty Barry
13/4/2016 12:37:19 am

Is it going to be the start of a decent Nintendo account system?

Currently, I can't get it to link with my Wii u account. But if it is going to mean I can play my downloaded games on whatever console they release next, I might have to persevere with getting it working.

Reply



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