The Mii I made in 2006 is still with me, and this is why Nintendo's design endures

Gaming has never been more personalised for player expression than it is today, where the most popular games give you the tools to create your own avatar, whether you want to literally put yourself in the game or create an original character to roleplay as. But as technology has advanced to the point where we can create the most detailed and photorealistic avatars, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Miis have remained the most universally beloved avatars since Nintendo introduced them nearly 20 years ago.

Given the name is a portmanteau of "Wii" and "me", it's no surprise that these custom avatars first debuted with Nintendo's best-selling console (now a certified retro console). However, the company had already considered the idea of a personal avatar much earlier, from a concept demo for the Japan-only Famicom Disk System to an avatar maker included in Mario Artist: Talent Studio, released for the short-lived (also Japan-exclusive) 64DD add-on for the N64.

There had of course also been other forms of custom avatars in games, with NBA Live 2000's 'Face in the game' feature being one of the earliest examples, though that involved downloading a photo of your face onto a player model, while character creation has long been a staple in MMOs. The beauty of Miis, however, is their broad universality, which neatly fitted their existence on the Wii, when Nintendo was also broadening its audience to non-traditional gamers, in other words, those who aren't necessarily interested in creating a version of themselves just in a fantasy setting, slaying orcs and dragons.

Mii, myself and I

While Mii creations might feel rudimentary, where most of the focus is on creating their face and head, there was nonetheless a lot of variety in hairstyles, eye, nose and mouth shapes to choose, while the ability to add facial hair and wrinkles meant you can also create older-looking Miis, something lacking in say Animal Crossing: New Horizons, where your avatar retains a youthful childlike appearance (who also regularly receives letters and gifts from their in-game mum).

An important aspect is that, rather than just existing as a profile icon, Miis served as an extension of the player, so you could play as them in many of Nintendo's first-party games, from Wii Sports to optional characters in other popular titles like Mario Kart Wii. That they could be used in different kinds of games also justifies their simplicity, since the face and head you've created stay the same, but the rest of their bodies change depending on the game. For instance, in Wii Sports, players' Miis had no arms and only spheres for hands, whereas for Wii Fit, they take on a more natural form.

Despite being associated with a console, Miis have continued beyond the Wii, not just in its successor, the Wii U, but also on the 3DS and the Nintendo Switch. Even though the latter's functionality is more limited without the charms of Miiverse or Street Pass, they can still be used in games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Miitopia - I still use a Mii for my own profile icon. They were also the star attraction of Nintendo's first mobile app, Miitomo, transcending barriers beyond Nintendo's hardware and even gaming. Indeed, in an Iwata Asks interview, Mii inventor Shigeru Miyamoto even said he wanted "Mii characters to be the world standard for avatars."

Across the Miiverse

Over that time, ways for creating Miis have also evolved to help players who are less confident about making their own Miis from scratch. For instance, the Wii U and 3DS could create a Mii for you based on a photo you take of yourself with their built-in cameras, while in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, you can create Miis with question-based prompts, though in each case, you can still fine-tune it afterwards. The flipside for the more creatively-minded is that Living the Dream also lets you manually draw whatever you want onto your Mii if you want something very specific, as well as weirder, non-human Miis.

Of course, during this time, gaming avatars have only gotten more popular. Just a couple years after the Wii's launch, Microsoft had a more advanced and sophisticated take with Xbox Live Avatars (incidentally developed by former Nintendo partner Rare), while these days any RPG can have you stuck for potentially hours just wanting to fine-tune every granular feature of your playable character, which can get as comprehensively detailed for a photorealistic one or something more stylised like anime.

And yet it is Miis that have endured in their appeal. Even when the Wii Sports successor, Nintendo Switch Sports, was released, the option to use Miis remained, which felt more charming than the new, cartoonier but more generic-looking Sportsmates avatars. It's in this comparison that the seeming limitations of Miis are actually shown to be what makes them more appealing.

Living the Mii dream

This is something that Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream's art director Daisuke Kageyama was conscious of when discussing the design of the game's Miis in an Ask the Developer interview:

"Normally, as hardware resolution increases, so too do the possibilities for character design. So Mii characters' expressions have evolved little by little alongside technology. However, after speaking to the producer, Sakamoto-san, as well as Takahashi-san and the previous development team, it seemed to me that the Mii characters in Tomodachi Life are treated differently from those in other titles. The fact that they don’t see Mii characters as mere avatars, but rather pour affection into them as living beings, came through strongly. Since the characters are filled with the emotions of many people, I didn't think we should randomly alter their design just because the resolution had increased."

In other words, even though there are some improvements to ensure the Mii don't feel outdated, it was important not to alter their facial features or the shape of their limbs, as that would risk changing what defines Mii characters' identities. This was similarly considered in the voices of Living the Dreams' Miis, which still sound like text-to-speech robots even though the actual tech can be more realistic.

Rather than being aspirational or realistic, Miis's caricatured style allows players to exaggerate and lean into the absurd. That's also a perfect fit for the likes of Mii fighters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a JRPG party in Miitopia, or the residents of Living the Dream's bizarre take on The Sims.

One noticeable change is that Living the Dream has applied a toon-shading aesthetic to Miis, which fits well with the game's over-the-top anime vibe during its dramatic and surreal cutscenes. It's an aesthetic that actually comes full circle as the Miis previously had a toon style for box art of the Japan-exclusive Tomodachi Collection on DS, incidentally a platform that didn't have a native Mii creator.

Considering that the late Satoru Iwata once explained in a fiscal results briefing that "licensing Mii is identical to licensing Mario", it's clear that Miis are an iconic part of Nintendo's brand, which gives me confidence that they will continue to be around for many more years. No doubt my Mii will also still look the same as the one I first made many years ago.

Tomodachi Life Living The Dream is out now on Nintendo Switch.