Nintendo is preparing its first foray into mobile gaming, Miitomo, for launch in March. The service’s official website (stunningly, Miitomo.com) is now online and the company is now taking pre-registrations for accounts on the service.
Miitomo isn’t a game in the traditional (especially Nintendo traditional) sense. It’s a social service that brings the company’s Mii avatars to your mobile and allows you to use them to chat with your friends. You can create your Mii manually, or use your device’s camera as a starting point. Your own Mii and your friend’s Miis will ask questions of you and your friends of their own accord and share the answers with you – Nintendo is hoping you’ll find out something new about your friends. Or maybe a deep, dark secret…
You’ll also be able to pose your Mii and add them to photos you’ve taken in case you want to make your Mii frolic on the beach or strike a pose on a city street. There’s a few pictures on the site already, and this is my favourite:
Nintendo notes on the site that it’s “free-to-start” – an ominous warning of looming in-app purchases. The game’s currency is “Miitomo Coins”, and for now it seems these are limited to purchasing outfits and accessories for your Mii so you can stay on-trend.
You’ll need a Nintendo account to pre-register for a Miitomo account (yeah…). Fortunately, you use social logins (Facebook, Twitter, Google) with Nintendo’s services, and if you’ve owned a Nintendo console or handheld in the past few years you’ll probably find you already have an account.
As an incentive for pre-registering, Nintendo is also offering free My Nintendo points, the currency for their new rewards program that’s also launching in March. Nintendo says it rewards users for interacting with Nintendo products. The company has previously offered some pretty neat items to members of their older loyalty programs, so hopefully this will be no different.
Will you get on board with Miitomo? Tell us what you think in the comments!
