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WSJ Article: Look, It's Mii -- on Wii!

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WSJ Article: Look, It's Mii -- on Wii!

Old 03-16-07, 08:06 AM
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WSJ Article: Look, It's Mii -- on Wii!

Here's a decent article from the WSJ on Mii's I found entertaining:



Look, It's Mii -- on Wii!
Nintendo's Hot System Sparks
Secondary Industry as Users Create
Their Own Characters
By YUKARI IWATANI KANE
March 16, 2007; Page B1

David Merrill, a 28-year-old graduate student in Somerville, Mass., struggled recently with a popular feature on Nintendo Co.'s Wii videogame console. Try as he might, he just couldn't get the game character he created, called Mii, to look like himself.

Frustrated, Mr. Merrill turned to the pros. He shelled out $5 to a Web-based service called Mii Station (www.miistation.com), run by a Tokyo entrepreneur, which creates look-alike game characters for Wii based on photos. Three days later, he received a Mii with spiky hair and a really big smile that he says pretty much captured his essence.

"It's made playing Wii a little more personal," says Mr. Merrill, adding that he doesn't have the perspective that graphic artists have to know what facial features to emphasize. "That makes a big difference."


The 42nd president is one of the more than 8,000 characters available on Miiplaza.net, one of many Web sites that collect and share Miis.
Nintendo's Wii game console has been a wild success since its launch late last year, mainly for its simple controller that can be waved around to simulate swinging a tennis racket or sword. Now, another feature called the Mii, which lets users create their own game characters using a selection of facial characteristics to appear on the screen, is sparking a creative frenzy. Over the past few months, the Mii has spawned a fast-growing secondary market, with more than a dozen Web sites selling T-shirts, beer mugs and statuettes with Miis on them, or simply sharing Mii creations of celebrities, politicians and fictional figures like Darth Vader.

"People really identify with [their Mii] characters," says Michael Buckbee, who runs a Web site called Fabjectory (www.fabjectory.com) that sells statuettes of virtual objects, and has recently started offering five-inch customized Mii figures for $100. Mr. Buckbee won't say how many figurines he has sold.

The popularity of the Mii could provide additional momentum for Nintendo, which has already sold 3.2 million units of the $250 console as of the end of December since its launch. While rival products, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.'s recently launched PlayStation 3 consoles are available on store shelves, demand for the Wii have been so high that consumers have stood in long lines or have paid a premium on eBay Inc.'s online auction site for the console.

For now, Mii characters can appear in only a few Wii games. In the most popular one, Wii Sports, Miis can play tennis, bowl, golf or box while users move the controller. And possibilities are endless. Users can have their likeness play tennis with, say Michael Jackson's, or have George W. Bush box with Saddam Hussein. Nintendo says it plans to come out with more games that can use Miis.


David Merrill with his Mii (left), created by Mii Station for $5; a $250 clay Mii by Paul Thiel
Unique game characters that represent players, known as avatars, are available in online multiplayer computer games like Second Life. But while the norm for these avatars is to create a fantasy character, the Wii is the first game system for the mass market to actively encourage players to create characters that look like themselves.

Fans say it's the thrill of seeing their clones run around on the screen that gets them addicted. "People are vain and they like seeing themselves on TV," says Eliza Villasenor, a 27-year-old Nintendo fan in Danville, Calif., who likes to play the Wii tennis game. "You get to be in a videogame. It's a trip and it's funny."

Nintendo's character-creating software is simple. Users can first choose from dozens of basic face types, and customize each feature such as hair, eyebrows, eyes, noses and mouths by clicking on their choice with a controller. They can also add facial hair, glasses or hats as well as move each feature vertically and horizontally to get the proportions just right.

The feature has sparked some Web sites, mostly run by Wii fans as side businesses or hobbies. Jeff Silvestris, a Boston-based Web developer, recently set up Mii Plaza (www.miiplaza.net), one of the largest Web sites that collect and share Miis with a database of over 8,000 characters, including nonhuman characters such as butterflies and the Eiffel Tower.

At first, so many visitors came to his site that they crashed his computer. "It was shocking," says Mr. Silvestris, who now keeps the site on a server in a co-location facility.

The Miis are now moving beyond the electronic realm. Paul Thiel, a New York sculpture artist, has offered a limited number of hand-crafted, clay Mii figures coated in acrylic paint on eBay that sold for about $250 each to people in the U.S., France and Australia. Others, like Mii Ware (www.miiware.com) offer T-shirts and sweat shirts with their Miis emblazoned on them.

Nintendo so far appears to be keeping a benevolent eye on the various Mii-related businesses and fan sites. A spokeswoman for Nintendo's U.S. unit says the company is considering offering Mii goods but doesn't have any concrete plans at the moment. The company didn't comment on whether some of the Web sites, such as one that offers free computer-based software to create Miis on PCs rather than Wiis, could be infringing on its intellectual property rights.

"We're thrilled with the enthusiastic response," said Beth Llewelyn, a spokeswoman for Nintendo of America in an email response. She added, however, that the company pays "close attention to activities outside of Nintendo to ensure we protect our rights."

Ms. Villasenor, the Wii tennis fan, is taking her Mii mania one step further. She recently contacted an artist in Hong Kong who advertised Mii sculptures on eBay and asked him to make cake toppers of her and her fiancé's Miis to put on top of their wedding cake when they get married in September.

"It's a surprise for my fiancé," Ms. Villasenor says. She also plans to set up two Wii-playing stations at the reception so guests could play.
Old 03-16-07, 08:17 AM
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Originally Posted by mphtrilogy
Ms. Villasenor, the Wii tennis fan, is taking her Mii mania one step further. She recently contacted an artist in Hong Kong who advertised Mii sculptures on eBay and asked him to make cake toppers of her and her fiancé's Miis to put on top of their wedding cake when they get married in September.
Awesome.
Old 03-16-07, 10:01 AM
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My friends' have some great Miis on their Wii - Asian Hitler and Scruffy Jesus are my favorites. It's awesome when they face off in Baseball.

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