Should Avatars and Miis Become Something More? - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 11 October 2011 / 5,581 Views
System wide avatars have become almost a platform standard this generation. Nintendo, who started the whole buzz, has their Miis, Microsoft their Avatars, and, to a much lesser extent, Sony and their PlayStation Home avatars. In Nintendo's and Microsoft's case, these characters not only represent system or account data but, on occasion, also appear in games like Mario Kart Wii, Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing and even some more traditional sports titles like both the NHL2k and Pro Evolution Soccer series on the Wii. But where they really get their time to shine in titles under the Wii and Kinect branding.
While normally far from poor quality, these titles generally are of the casual nature. These usually limit players to very small mini-game experiences with no real binding factor outside of a menu. For what it is, it works. From a market stand point, sales can often go well beyond that of many AAA releases. Outside of that series, from a function standpoint Avatars and Miis have act as a profile images for gamers and icons for save slots. In some cases they may even invade your game, making for a fun distraction.
Even within their own titles and world, they feel generally under utilized. Sure, they're called 'Avatars' and 'Miis' for a reason, as they simply act as a body to represent a you in a game world, but I think they're terms that should be used rather loosely. While their little smiles are definitely charming, their facial expressions can only do so much. To some that might be their charm, but I think that Nintendo has already shown with Tomodachi Collection that they are capable taking the Miis further without destroying their image.
Tomodachi Collection was a Nintendo DS game release in 2009 exclusively in Japan. Players could create or import Miis. While still fairly adventurous in the variety of their activities, this time around the player never took direct control of the Mii. In fact, the Miis actually take a form of their own, complete with personalities and the ability to talk to the player and to other Miis. How their personality develops depends on a series of stats you give them when created or moved over to your DS. It sort of like making a Sim, but with Miis and they can actually speak. The title was extremly successful in Japan moving 3.6 million units, and now a sequel on the way for 3DS.
In this case, the personalities are software specific, but it could prove interesting if the personalities stats were built into the system software. No, not so your Avatar or Mii can chatter at you whenever you try to boot a game on your system. Rather, being able to carry your Mii or Avatar across a variety of experiences while remaining consistent. That smart placement of Miis or Avatars with personalities to fill NPC roles using specific personality types.
Avatars and Miis have a sort of fun air about them that you don't get in many other experiences. Expanding this into something larger could prove to be an interesting experience, as well as provide another layer of interaction between system software and the games themselves. We're bound to see at least see Miis continue to pop up here and there and maybe Avatars depending on how much Microsoft plans to support them. Hopefully they'll be given the time and effort to continue to evolve, even if it is not in the way described above. Otherwise, they'll just be stagnant afterthoughts.
