Nintendo’s first mobile app was released Thursday in Japan and will come to 16 other countries in the next two weeks. Miitomo is more like a social network than a game, with its features focused on sharing, including your personal avatar that interacts with your friends as you create dialogs and share photos with each other. The app came on both Android and iOs in eight languages.
The first app Nintendo launches outside its own devices is a mix of social features that comes from the idea of gamers gathering around the couch and exchanging strategies with friends.
“This acts as a bridge between the app world and the real world in ways that I had not seen other social applications do,” Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime told Mashable.
But even with the social network characteristic, there’s no doubt that Miitomo was created by Nintendo. The weird Mii avatars first launched on the Wii in 2006 are the representation of users on the network. You can create yours by taking a selfie from your mobile device and the app will generate a bunch of Miis so you can choose and edit the one you find most suitable to you.
Wii U or 3DS can import their already existing Miis if they don’t feel like running once again through the customization features. Once you have your avatar, you’ll be able to assign your Mii attributes, including a robotic voice that will sound every time you interact with a friend.
Focus on social networking
Miitomo users will be able to add the connections you already have on Facebook and Twitter, as well as find and include friends who are using the app in the same room where you are. The app’s main interaction method consists of open-prompt questions such as “What’s your favorite TV show?” and broader queries.
You can respond the questions with as much or as little text as you like and your friends will be able to see your answers as they respond queries and do activities in the app. You can also like or comment on each other’s conversations.
Fils-Aime said that the company saw an interesting opportunity in the social space to do something different in order to combine the elements of the app with the real world that the Nintendo team believes is missing now.
Source: Mashable