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Miis are the avatar on consoles like the [[Wii]].

Miis are customizable avatars used on several Nintendo video game consoles and services. First appearing on the [[Wii|Wii's]] built-in ''Mii Channel'' application, they have since appeared on each subsequent Nintendo system including the [[Nintendo DS]] and mobile phones, and have been used in over three hundred titles since their debut. Mii characters created by a user can freely be transferred onto an amiibo figure or a compatible Nintendo system depending on the iteration of the Mii creation software.

 

The Miis are avatars used in the [[Wii]], [[Nintendo DS]], [[Nintendo 3DS]], [[Wii U]] and [[Nintendo Switch]] titles. They come with more than 10,000+ possible combos to make.

 

=Origin=

=Origin=

Miis took a long path to be finalized.

The overall concept of Mii characters took a period of over fifteen years to finalize, with the idea first originating on the Famicom Disk System sometime during/after 1986. Designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, a prototype application was developed that consisted of being able to freely place and assign facial parts onto a character, Feedback for the software was fairly positive, but executives at Nintendo doubted whether the concept could be converted into a full game.

The Miis first originated on the Famicon. After the [[Famicon Disk System]] was released in Japan, Miyamoto had the idea of a game to make faces. Nicknamed as "Make Someone You Know project" game, it also came with a "Scenario Disk" to use them. Reviews were critical, as people didn't think it was a game, and was more of an art tool.  

Nearly a decade later, in the summer of 1995, Nintendo commissioned UK-based developer Software Creations to work on a three-dimensional sequel to ''Mario Paint'' for their upcoming Nintendo 64 system. Eventually, the project evolved into the ''Mario Artist'' series, a set of four titles released through 1999 to 2000 only for the Japan-exclusive Nintendo 64DD add-on; a similar disk drive accessory akin to the Famicom's Disk System. The second application in the series was titled ''Talent Studio'' (known as ''Talent Maker'' early in development) and consisted of preset characters that players could freely customize portrayed as celebrities in-game named "Talents". Using the Game Boy Camera's Transfer Pak or the included Capture Cassette that utilized video ports, photographs of faces could be mapped onto a Talent and freely animated and placed into movies created with the application. While the application's character creator was extremely ambitious for its time, the game sold very little due to the 64DD's commercial failure.

Then, they travelled to the Nintendo 64 in 1999, at the release of the [[N64 Disc Drive]], Miyamoto had the idea to make sequels to Mario Paint, a game for the SNES, known as Mario Artist. There were 3 games released - Mario Artist: Paint Studio, Mario Artist: Polygon Studio and Mario Artist: Talent Studio. Talent Studio was based off Make Someone You Know, and just like it, you could make faces and insert them into scenarios. Mario Artist '''was''' released, but the game and the N64 Disc Drive alone had low sales. Still, employees didn't think it was much of a game.

Shortly after the Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance's release, several accessories for the latter system were presented during Nintendo's E3 2002 and 2003 showcases which included the e-Reader and the Game Eye, a successor to the Game Boy Camera. These accessories were planned to be utilized within a GameCube title known as ''Stage Debut'', a spiritual successor to ''Mario Artist: Talent Studio.'' Developed from 2002 to 2004, the game used was used in conjunction with the Game Boy Advance and revolved around players placing photographs of faces taken with the handheld's Game Eye camera and placing them onto dancing characters that could be placed in several settings along with characters from existing Nintendo franchises such as ''Super Mario'', ''Pikmin'', and ''Animal Crossing'' if the player scanned in a compatible e-Reader card. Although an official release was planned with an alternative logo being trademarked later after its public E3 showing, the title was later cancelled due to Nintendo executives once again not envisioning the title as a proper game.

The GameCube and GameBoy Advance were now getting 3 new accessories - the GameBoy Pak, the e-Readers, and the i-Cam. Miyamoto's  idea was getting new life - a game where you can have your face on a GameCube game. People doubted it could be a full-on game, so it was also scrapped.

Meanwhile, Yoshio Sakamoto and his team were planning a Nintendo DS spiritual successor to ''Tottoko Hamutaro: Tomodachi Daisakusen Dechu'', a Nintendo-published Game Boy Color title featuring the manga character Hamtaro which utilized a real-time clock as well as a feature that let players register birthdays of themselves and other people into the game where they could discover their match with those registered, with the titular Hamtaro character reminding the player of each birthday as they occur. The successor was titled ''Otona no Onna no Uranai Techo'', or ''Women's Fortune Telling Pocket Notebook'', and an avatar system for registered users was planned early during development. Once then Nintendo president Satoru Iwata discovered the project, he relayed it to Shigeru Miyamoto who was coincidentally planning a similar concept for the upcoming Wii system. The members of the ''Women's Fortune Telling Pocket Notebook'' team then shifted development towards the Wii's ''Mii Channel'' application, and the DS title later became ''Tomodachi Collection.''

In 2005 to 2006, the Wii was being planned. Miyamoto got his last hope of a personalised experience for characters. The reason they failed is that they were a bit too complicated and needed too much accesories. Around this time, Miis were more like Kokeshi dolls, and would be simple. At another part of Nintendo, other devs were designing Miis on a DS game, but, they thought the parts needed to be resizable and repositionable, to make Miis of other people like Sakamoto. Sakamoto passed it onto Iwata, who then passed it onto Miyamoto who loved the idea, and joined Sakamoto's side, Nintendo EAD. After a few bits of tweaking, the Mii Channel and the Miis alone were ready.

See [[Miis/Games]].

* [[Miis/Games]]: a subpage listing every Mii-supported title

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