Kotaku
The evening of November 11th will see an all-new channel join the Wii's lineup, as Nintendo officially announces the Check Mii Out Channel. The channel consists of two different areas, the Posting Plaza and the contest section. The posting Plaza acts as a sort of Mii marketplace, where users can upload their Miis, browse other people's creations by region, search for Miis by number or creator, or just pull up random thousand of the little guys for a party on your television. Find one you like and you can import it directly to your system. The contest section will host Mii creation contests based on famous people, historical figures, or even descriptive themes left open to personal interpretation. Contests will run two weeks, with the first week for entry and the second for judging. The prizes? Why notoriety of course, which to a creative person is worth its weight in gold! Nice to see the Mii concept expanded somewhat. I plan on downloading every Mii I can until my console explodes.
NINTENDO SAYS 'CHECK MII OUT' WITH CREATIVE NEW CHANNEL FOR WIIFree Interactive Channel Lets Users View, Vote for the Best Mii Creations
REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 8, 2007 � It's no secret that fans of Nintendo's Wii� system love their Mii� characters � those adorably cartoonish caricatures of friends and family members that can be used in games like Wii Sports�. Some of the more artistic fans have even taken it upon themselves to make Miis of celebrities, politicians and fictional characters. Nintendo supports consumers' creative spirit with the Nov. 11 evening launch of the Check Mii Out Channel. This free new channel can be downloaded from the WiiWare� section of the Wii Shop Channel by people who have their Wii systems connected to the Internet.
"The Check Mii Out Channel lets people show off their Mii creations and vote on those created by others," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "It's yet another way that we're building fun, interactive communities of Wii owners without charging them extra for the privilege."
In the Posting Plaza, users can submit, exchange or just browse Miis posted by others in their region or worldwide. The channel offers the ability to look at a random selection of 1,000 Miis or to see just the current or all-time favorites. Players have a variety of ways to search for specific Miis, including by the name of its creator or by a number specific to each Mii. Once users have found that "special Mii," they can even tag their favorites or import them to their own Wii systems.
The contest section of the Check Mii Out Channel challenges users to submit Mii creations to represent a specific person, character or theme. These could include historical figures (Abraham Lincoln or Vincent Van Gogh), fictional characters (the Tooth Fairy or the New Year's Baby) or descriptive themes ("the biggest bully ever" or "the overbearing boss"). Users can then vote on Miis submitted by others to determine the Mii that best fits the challenge. Each contest will generally last two weeks: one for creating and submitting Miis, and the second week for people to vote on the results.
The Check Mii Out Channel is the latest addition to other fun, interactive informational channels, such as the News Channel, Everybody Votes Channel and Forecast Channel. Remember that Wii features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other Wii features, visit Wii.com.
The worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii�, Nintendo DS�, Game Boy� Advance and Nintendo GameCube� systems. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold nearly 2.4 billion video games and more than 420 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario�, Donkey Kong�, Metroid�, Zelda� and Pok�mon�. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, visit the company's Web site at www.nintendo.com.
Comments
I plan on doing the same.... Can Miis be stored on SD cards?
Wow - Nintendo didn't drop this on us as a surprise this time - they actually announced it. Finally - a place to put all of the Celebre-Miis I've collected like Hellboy and Miss Piggy.
Oh, and Fahey - your console explodes at 100 Miis - just one short of having the full collection of all 101 Smurfs (or Dalmations, for the slightly younger audience)
Gave my Wii away last week. Didn't want it anymore.
Check Mii out? You serious?
@ctoa23: Gave it away? Sucker.
Seems kinda cute ... this should've been a Wii launch channel tho, no? I always thought it was like ... necessary to have something like this.
@ctoa23:
I guess being rich is good enough that you can give away 250+ dollars and not feel bad about it.
This is great but they should also update the mii channel with more hairstyles and facial features etc...
I made Jack Thompson...I should put him up!
Also, I made Mary Worth and Aldo Kelrast. Which...is probably irrelevant to most of the population, but those of us in the know could never let Aldomania end!
@Tsaketh:
Not sure about the SD card, but you can store up Miis (I believe up to 10) on the Wii-mote.
@TSAKETH No they save(Mii's) to the remote but they might change it because of this feature.
This is an awesome idea. Now I have a real excuse to make Miis!
Woohoo! Another rather pointless Wii channels to waste even more time. Although time you enjoy wasting isn't really wasted time. I see many more hours disappearing into this one.
meh
This would have been nicer like 6 or 8 months ago when people were still crazy over Miis. At this point it's almost like being at a birthday party and the guest of honor doesn't get there until the food is gone and people are ready to leave. It seems late to really latch on to a craze. Haven't we seen enough michael jacksons?
@bobeotm: I was never really crazy for them, I just made one for me and my girlfriend, but I'm not about to say no to free content. I think this could be a fun and interesting addition.
I'll use this for 5 minutes and then never touch it again, just like I did with the weather channel, the vote channel, the news channel, the photo channel, etc.
If the weather channel wasn't constantly hours behind, I might actually use it.
Are they going to have more customization options? Please?
@ctoa23: man, you are hardcore. really, really hardcore. you're like a big mountain-dew-chugging, fraggerific pile of heteronormative hardcore.
Oh mii god! I've already snagged over a hundred Miis from the parade. My brother's gonna kill me if I get more.
what about PAL-users??? will we get it in 6 months or also on 11/11?
I wonder what they'll do about inappropriate Miis - like Hitler Mii or something.
Miini Hitler is so going up.
This is a great idea, and really takes out the middle-man from all of the Mii sites out there. Maybe I won't have to sit through excruciating YouTube videos of how to create Admiral Ackbar any more.
@Raynre: We'll have to compare Adolfs; I have one too that I'm very proud of.
I don't think theres a Wii out there without a mini Adolf parading around on it.
I do look forward to uploading my cast of Lost =)
Look out for kidko's Communist Party Pack!
A contest with no prizes except notoriety is a bad contest. Gee Nintendo, you couldn't spare a dime for a prize to the winner?
Is this Nintendo's answer to no Mii functionality? Lame!!! How about expanding the editing functions or letting us look at stats? Nintendo are so satisfied with the half-assed functionality of the Wii it feels like they'll never make any easy fixes that could make a difference. Check Mii out is all we're going to get. Bastards!
This sounds like a very fun idea. I really enjoy these little guys. I hope they do more with this in the future.
It's a shame all Mii's look really bad and completely unimpressive.
Awesome another great feature I won't be able to take advantage of because of my lack of wireless support.
I'd just love more Mii options.. expansion guys, come on!!!!!!
@bobeotm,
"This would have been nicer like 6 or 8 months ago when people were still crazy over Miis."
You DO realize there are about 1 million NEW Wii owners every month right? Its not like no one is discovering Miis for the first time this very day?
I'm constantly amazed at some peoples insularity. Its like the rest of the world does not exist. They assume every human has had the same experience as them at the same time in their life.
@stupiddufus
"If the weather channel wasn't constantly hours behind, I might actually use it."
Does anyone actually check the weather of right NOW without looking out a window? Its not even called the WEATHER channel. Its the FORECAST channel. I use it almost every day to see what its going to look like TOMORROW.
I made Tom Nook and KK Slider. I'm not uploading them though. Too unique.
Nice! sounds like it could be a neat little feature for the Wii. I really wish Nintendo would hold contests and give out Wii points for the winners though...
Oh I am SO gonna put my upside-down-face on that!
Wow ! I'll have a reason to turn on my Wii to download this channel I will not use and I won't turn it on again since Super Smash Launch !
Simply joking I love my Wii ! Maybe I'll get Super Mario Galaxy ...
@Rebochan: You *so* need to put Mary Worth up there so I can snag that.
awesomeness...i was just thinking about something like this last night as I made some famous miis
@ Fahey: "I plan on downloading every Mii I can until my console explodes."
That ought to show Nintendo that they need to get cracking on some external HDD goodness.
¬_¬
I might put my gay Mexican pimp on there. At least, I call him gay. There isn't really anything about him that makes him look gay, but... eh.
Nevermind...
Anyways, I thought this was coming in September, not November. UNEXCUSABLE DELAY, NINTENDO! Why must you post this around a time where I'll be too focused on Mario Galaxy, Geometry Wars, NiGHTS... let's face it, almost every big game for this year comes out in two days. This comes off as poor timing, but a nice little novelty... I don't know. I didn't really care too much for Miis in the first place. Most of my friends however like messing around with it, so they may enjoy this.
The amount of Hitlers will be funny to watch.
I'd still much rather the downloadable DS demo channel and hard drive support.
note to george harrison: building fun, interactive communities usually involves communication. (Latin roots, yo!) yet you dont allow wii owners to communicate, so I think your statement is disingenuous at best.
@Tonx: Interesting that the "older" audience would know Smurfs, since the Dalmatians date back almost fifty years.
@bobeotm: Maybe you feel that way but there are many people who still love the Miis. Don't make generalizations when you don't know.
@kidko: do want!
@Benjo: i prefer my lil Rabbi Hitler. don't know who made him, but he's awesome!
i think there will be lots of Jesus' too. i counted like six Jesuii on my parade the other day. Jesus, Michael Jackson and Hitler walked into a bar... er. Mii parade
They need an update pack to Mii creation options. I think that would go over really well.
I'm glad this is coming out, but they really, really need to allow you to store more Mii's... I was full within the first month.
@damon53,
You may want to dust off your latin text book. Both community and communicate are derived from the Latin communis, which means common. In the case of community it is used to describe a group with common interests or in a common location. Community is NOT derived from communicate and communities actually have nothing to do with communication. And besides, one can communicate with facial expressions and that can be done with Miis. I would say YOUR comment was disingenuous, if it weren't more accurate to call it fayboyish. Either way, it still makes you sound common. Did you see what I did there?
Oh wow, Nintendo gets the best updates
It's too bad that you can only store 100 Miis on your system. I really don't understand why Nintendo won't buckle down and make a HDD add-on that can hold saves, channels, and other data and update the Wii to take advantage of it. Seriously, I'm really getting tired of putting shit on my SD card. It's super slow. They really ought to let us have an expanded interface because the number of channel slots don't cut it either.
Sad times... I can think of 3 ideas in a few seconds that are vastly superior to this in terms of channel ideas. Nintendo needs to stop patronizing it's Wii user base and give us some worthwhile d/l content. I can't see myself logging into this channel ever, for any reason.