2. Wii’s Mii Structure - Heavily Opposed

Iwata - I personally saw Minamoto-san bring up “portraits! portraits!” again and again for, I won’t say 20 years, but for over 10 for sure. First he created this software for the Famicom Disc System, but that was never released in that form, then next came “Talent Studio" (※8) on the 64DD, and that did get released, but not many people got the chance to enjoy that experience. But he didn’t give up there - he then makes software themed around portraits on the GameCube, but various people didn’t get it - “so… what do you do with it?” - the appeal clearly not getting across, so it didn’t get released. And even after that we finally got to the Wii, and once again he brings up this “kokeshi idea”, and even his team were kind of in a tough spot. There was this mood, like, “Miyamoto-san’s STILL saying it” (laughs).

Miyamoto - I heard they said, “What am I going to do if I’m made the director?” (laughs).

※8 “Talent Studio”＝64DD software that appeared in February of 2000. One title in the Mario Artist series. Had the capability of loading photos in from the Game Boy Camera, as well as easily creating movies.

Iwata - And then, one day, Takahashi-san’s boss, Sakamoto-san, had come to me and showed me this prototype on the DS saying, “we kinda made this thing…” And already there we had Miis. Well, they weren’t Miis as we know them today, but I feel like the functionality was pretty much the same. In other words - you chose from different parts, magnified, shrunk and adjusted their placement, rotated them, and made these portraits.

If at that point I wasn’t aware of the persistence Miyamoto-san had in relation to these portraits I may have just told Sakamoto-san, “OK, take your time making this into something more” and that would have been the end of the discussion. Had that been the case, what we know as Miis probably wouldn’t have been born, and of course 100 million Miis wouldn’t have been born in Japan and America - but it hit me right there and then. “Maybe this is what Miyamoto-san has been looking for.” And so I said, “Sakamoto-san, please lend this to me for a bit”, and I went and showed it to Miyamoto-san. Just as I had expected, he said “This is it!”.

Miyamoto - That was really some good fortune. There happened to be a trans-departmental meeting about the Wii’s hardware functionality development, and when I proposed the Mii idea there by message almost everyone was completely opposed to it. Saying things like, “Almost the whole system is locked down, why bring this up NOW?” I ended up going to explain it myself.

Iwata - That’s right.

Miyamoto - That being the case, Iwata-san brought the avatar editor that Takahashi-san’s team had made, and when I looked at it, it hadn’t been “upgraded” as a I mentioned before. There weren’t many parts you could use, and it was really simple. Normally if you were to talk about making an avatar maker for the Wii, the conversation would immediately jump in that direction of making it more robust – bringing in hundreds of different pieces you could use, being able to detect a person’s facial silhouette, that kind of thing, but that’s not how it went.

One thing I’ve always been fond of is packing in as much as you can with each bit of save data – I’d always say things like, “If we have just one more bit, we’d be able to accommodate 16 more new pieces”. And in this particular instance we found out how many bytes we could save to the Wii Remote – I think one Mii took about 70 bytes.

Takahashi - 74 bytes, to be precise.

Miyamoto - It was 74 bytes. So if you wanted to create robust avatar data of about 1 megabyte, you wouldn’t be able to save it to your Wii Remote. But at 74 bytes, that means you could save 10,000 people to your Wii itself. Only, when it came time to discuss putting the Mii maker in the Wii, lots of people said, “with this spec you can’t make them look believably similar”. But even if they didn’t look similar – you’re still happy to see the result of something you made, and for instance – there’s no grandparent that’s not going to delight in seeing the avatar their grandchild made of them. When I tried using that logic to force it through several people agreed to do it.

Iwata - At that point all of the developers here were taken by the Information Development Division, which ended up being the beginning of tough times – Takahashi-san, you were only in your 4th year at the time, right?

Takahashi - Yes.

Iwata - And for Okamoto-san and company, there were a couple people in the team who started at the company at the same time, but it was essentially the first title that they had worked on since starting at the company. And that’s how a young team, having just made some software for the DS was suddenly told, “We’ve decided to integrate this into the Wii internally, so come on over to the Information Development Division and finish it up. Your whole team is going to be moved over here for half a year.” At the time I may not have actually mentioned any time period in an attempt to trick all of you here, however (laughs).

Takahashi - I think it was 3, no – 4 months (laughs).

Iwata - Actually, I said 3 months, but I think it actually took 4 or 5. Takahashi-san, when you first got wind of this discussion, how did you hear it?

Takahashi - Honestly I was incredibly surprised. Obviously we wanted to finish up this game that we started work on, and I was a bit worried about what was going to happen to the avatars moving forward, but at the same time the idea that they would become a standard function of the Wii hardware itself meant we had a chance for a massive amount of people to play with them.

Iwata - I also remember trying to seduce you, saying, “this is your chance” (laughs).

Takahashi - That’s right (laughs). And Okamoto-san actually felt that…

Iwata - Okamoto-san, what were your feelings?

Okamoto- I was also happy about it. I thought, “chances like this don’t come around”.

Iwata - That was your first year, wasn’t it.

Okamoto - Yes.

Iwata - To be able get such a huge job during your first year, just like that, out of the blue, must have been pretty rough, but there’s also a lucky side to it, isn’t there? In any event, to be told now that there are over 100 million Miis in Japan and America I’m sure you’re breathing a sigh of relief, no?

Okamoto - Well, obviously (laughs).

Iwata - And those numbers are only including Japan and America. And just like that, you were pulled in by chance to create the Mii. However, even though back then the avatar software was almost completely finished on the DS, there were actually quite a few hurdles in the way. Before choosing to officially include it in the development of the Wii I actually brought it to America to test and find out if, for instance, just because Japanese people could create avatars it turned out that people from other countries wouldn’t be particularly good at it. After that, from around the beginning of 2006 main development began with a roar.

Miyamoto - It was like a high-wire act.

Iwata - At the time, just by chance, Takahashi-san and Okamoto-san and company were making software called “Fortune Telling Diary for Adult Women” (※9), which included the base for the Miis, and if that had never existed we may have had the kokeshi in “Wii Sports” instead of the Mii.

Miyamoto - Right.

※9 “Fortune Telling Diary for Adult Women (Otona no Onna no Uranai Techō)”＝ Developed originally as a game aimed at adult women where you could register your friends and enjoy compatibility horoscopes, but was eventually completely revamped and sold as “Tomodachi Collection.”

Iwata - At this point it’s probably hard for everyone to imagine a Wii without Miis.

Miyamoto - We’ll forever be in your debt (laughs).

Iwata - Wait a minute now (laughs). We are incredibly lucky that you kept this persistence in relation to the portrait idea for 20 years, and then that all of the connections within the company network fired off the way they did. Miyamoto-san, when you saw the Miis once they had been finalized did you think that they would lead us to where we are today?

Miyamoto - I did hope that people would have a collection of their whole family as Miis. That’s why I wanted to line up the Miis on the title screen of “Wii Fit” (※10). And then in the new “Wii Fit Plus” (※11) we even put in pets (laughs). Furthermore, I definitely wanted to do the “Mii Contest Channel” (※12). Miis are easily created with this simple tool, so the first thing I thought when people were internally saying things like, “there’s not enough parts”, or “these parts won’t make Miis that look similar to anyone” was “OK, let’s make it a contest”.

Contests are more interesting if everyone’s given restraints - the way you’re tasked with creating “rakugo” in 3 words with “sandaibanashi”, for instance. So in that context, if a Mii that really looks similar to someone shows up, even the people that were saying “the parts won’t make Miis that look similar to anyone” will suddenly feel that drive to use those parts to make one that DOES look like someone. And that’s why I absolutely wanted to do contests.

Iwata - Miyamoto-san is the kind of person that, if he’s told “Mii don’t look like real people (because there’s not enough parts)”, it’s pretty likely he’d think, “what the hell?”, and I think that’s also an important kind of energy for making things.

※10 “Wii Fit”＝ Wii fitness software released in December of 2007.

※11 “Wii Fit Plus”＝ Wii fitness software released in October of 2009 that adds new features and training regiments to “Wii Fit.”

※12 “Mii Contest Channel”＝ One of the free Wii Channels downloadable from the Wii Shopping Channel. Allows for people to post Miis that they’ve created and receive Miis created by complete strangers.