Sorry to see you go, MiiTomo

A week ago Nintendo announced that they will be shutting down MiiTomo on May 9. The first smartphone app that Nintendo brought us, will be gone almost two years after its release. My first reaction was disbelief: why? And then: can they just do this?

Remember when I published two articles on here about the choice of going digital in gaming or sticking to physical game cartridges? (You can find them here: Let’s go digital! and here Physical all the way!). There wasn’t a choice here, as you can’t buy MiiTomo as a game cartridge, but this goes to show how easily a publisher can decide to take back all you had acquired in a game. Just gone from one day to the next. An unnerving thought.

Apart from that part though, I’ve been examining my own thoughts about MiiTomo. True, I didn’t visit every day, and the social aspect of the game, for which it was designed, left a lot to be desired. Still, I loved the Mii part of it, dressing up and sending messages back and forth with a couple of friends. Using my free game tickets until they were depleted to get some nice costumes from the MiiTomo drop.

Lately I used it to make nice photos featuring Mii’s to make images for the site here. But I guess the user numbers were dwindling fast, as they had since the first months of launch. The app reached the 10 million user mark, but Nintendo went on to real smartphone games. I’ll admit were better value for the money, but then they were real games. MiiTomo was supposed to be a social app.

Was Nintendo just testing the waters? Or was it the fact that Nintendo has abandoned the Mii as their signature avatar? For that’s a pattern you see in their current-day games and devices. The Mii that I loved in 3DS Streetpass, in the MiiVerse and that featured in Tomodachi Life and MiiTopia, is all but gone.

Maybe it’s too cutesy for them now, doesn’t fit in with the image Nintendo strives for with the Switch. Looking at the games that are coming to that device, you can tell they are aiming at what some call hardcore gamers. And I get that the Mii doesn’t fit in there. The Mii is from another era, the era of the Wii and of the little green light blinking that you had a streetpass hit.

At least Nintendo doesn’t let the app disappear without giving its loyal users something extra. From now on, right till the end, the Final Thank You Festival is in effect. A daily login bonus of 2.000 coins  and 5 game tickets a day. So I can’t resist making as many Mii photos as I can, as a sort of farewell. Remember though, the only way to save the photos is by saving them to your smartphone. Not even posting them on Facebook or Twitter will help. They will all be gone come May 9.

I for one will miss MiiTomo, it was fun while it lasted!