The Wii Sports series will be getting a follow up on Nintendo Switch: Nintendo Switch Sports, although it doesn’t use the series’ iconic Miis to the same extent as the original. Announced during the February 9, 2022 Nintendo Direct, Nintendo Switch Sports follows in the series’ footsteps as a motion control-based game with various sports to play. The game is slated to release April 29 and will have an Online Play Test throughout the month of February.
Nintendo Switch Sports will come with soccer, volleyball, bowling, tennis, bton, and chambara at launch. A free update in fall will also add golf to the game’s lineup. The game will use the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con controllers’ motion control feature to let people play the games using the motions they would as if it were the real sport. Unlike the original, however, the character models have a slight cartoonish or anime-inspired style, and aren’t directly using Miis.
The original Wii Sports was bundled with Nintendo’s immensely popular Wii system, and made use of the console's new Miis. Players used their Miis as avatars in the game, and Miis went on to become Nintendo staples. They’ve been used in the Nintendo 3DS Street and its associated games, and Miis are the primary characters in games such as Tomodachi Life and Miitopia. The Mii even features in Super Smash Bros. as the playable character Mii Fighter, complete with plenty of costumes to reference their customization possibilities. But the recent Nintendo Direct showcased Nintendo Switch Sports gameplay with an obvious shift away from using Miis. Although Miis featured very briefly in the example volleyball game, the rest of the gameplay used Nintendo Switch Sports’ all new character models. The reason for this isn’t entirely clear, but based on the overall lack of recent Mii usage - and the way they’ve changed in the Miitopia remake on Switch - Nintendo may be coming up with new ways to use them moving forward.
Nintendo Switch Sports May Be Too Serious To Focus On Miis
In the Nintendo Switch remake of the customizable RPG Miitopia, players still use Miis but can customize them to much greater degrees than in any prior game. An increase in customizability was warranted since fans had tried to make unique designs with Miis even with the limited capabilities they had at their inception. This silliness was very fitting for Miitopia, but might not be the direction Nintendo wants to go with Nintendo Switch Sports. Nintendo may also be working on new titles with similarly improved customization for Miis. It would be very fun to see a game like Tomodachi Life receive a similar treatment as Miitopia, but again the matter of tone appears: Tomodachi Life is another enjoyable 3DS game that is meant to be humorous.
Although Nintendo Switch Sports likely isn’t meant to be immensely serious - it’s fairly lighthearted - it’s still not as wacky as Miitopia or Tomodachi Life. It’s up in the air whether there will be another Tomodachi Life or any Nintendo game that focuses on Miis, but it looks like Nintendo may be keeping them mostly for use in sillier titles. It’s still likely that they’ll make an appearance in Nintendo Switch Sports if the example volleyball match is anything to go by, but the spotlight won’t be cast on them.
