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It's been more than two months now since Miitomo, Nintendo's first smartphone game/app, was released. My ancient smartphone wasn't recent enough to run it, so I've been stealing time on my partner's iPad. I only had one friend to start off with, but after they added the feature that you could add friends via email I was able to add a couple more.
The app had a well-documented and storied history, from its initial announcement, which frustrated investors and baffled the general population, to its hugely popular release, to the current point in time where it seems regular usage has declined significantly.
NintendoLife has a good run-down of the app's features, and at its core its main feature is to let you find out more about your friends by answering questions and comparing answers. This may not sound that fun, but their pitch that you'll find out things about your friends that you never knew is certainly true and, depending on how good your friends are at making jokes, can be highly entertaining.
The second main feature is buying clothes for your Mii and dressing her/him up. You can also earn special clothes through a pachinko-like mini-game, although this game in particular can be maddening since you could waste a significant amount of virtual and real currency trying to nab that one item that you really want.
The last main feature is the ability to create Miifotos, which are funny pictures featuring your and your friends' Miis. The interface is flexible and simple to use and the feature set is pretty rich. Apparently Miifotos were a big draw for people, although as with the app itself I'm sure regular usage has declined significantly.
Not being into buying virtual clothing at all, I can't see myself wanting to spend real money on this any time soon. It's hard to say what sort of features they'd add to this since I expect they're trying to keep this experience distinct and separate from their Tomodachi series. That being the case, I'm not sure that they'll add in the ability to decorate your house or not. That and features like it seem sort of inevitable, although I seriously doubt that will be enough to draw people back into using the app itself.
I always have to chuckle when I see Nintendo confound expectations so unapologetically, but I don't know how much staying power Miitomo has. Still, I'm happy to check in with it semi-regularly to read my friends' answers and earn a few MyNintendo points and I can see myself picking it up whenever I find another friend to join in on the quirky fun.
Meet these Miitomo links:
- Official site
- Current most popular Miifotos on Twitter
- Entry on iTunes
- Entry at Google Play
- Entry on Wikipedia