While Miis have been featured in first party Wii games such as Wii Sports and Wii Play, and offered cameo appearances in WarioWare: Smooth Moves, their absence from third party software is Nintendo’s fault according to an EA producer in an interview with Next Generation. From the article:
“According to EA producer Eric Chartrand, Nintendo hasn’t released the necessary tools to put Miis into third-party games yet. If the company wants Miis to become a lasting sticky application, it’d be wise to acclimatize third-party developers sooner rather than later. Regardless, Miis have the potential to usher in true user-generated game characters on consoles.”
The obvious choice for Miis in an EA game is the upcoming Wii Sims game gracing the cover of the latest issue of Nintendo Power. But why wouldn’t Nintendo go for this sort of idea? To be fair, most of the third party games that have been released on the Wii thus far wouldn’t really benefit much from Miis. I mean, I fail to see how games like Sonic would be enhanced with Mii support. Still, it would have been nice to have been given the option to hunt down your friends as tiny Mii Elebits.
Any thoughts on why Nintendo isn’t giving third parties Mii love? Perhaps Nintendo wants Mii appearances to be truly special occasions?