In another SURPRISE! move by Nintendo, I received a Wii email about a Check Mii Out Channel update late last night. The information letter must be a rolling release, because Kotaku still hasn't reported on it. I downloaded it right away, as I'm still moderately amused by the CMOC. <-- Initials provided for additional hipness.
Besides, one of updated features allows browsing of the Top 500 Miis (rather than merely the Top 50), which means increased access to Miis like this one:
Although I'm sure Nintendo will yank that Mii soon enough. Yank it hard.
The list of upgrades is mostly ease-of-use stuff, including the long awaited "Show My Damn Miis Without Having To Memorize Stupid Codes" feature.
I don't know what is up with Nintendo that they can just sneak these out without any advance discussion. People were complaining about the Check Mii Out Channel's eccentricities as soon as it showed up, and now Nintendo quietly fixes some of the biggest issues. Sony and Microsoft would have spent the last two months talking about the fixes, polling about the fixes, beta-testing the fixes, press-releasing the fixes, issuing the fixes, and then thanking themselves profusely over the fixes.
Not that most of that is a good thing; the Sony/Microsoft marketing machine(s) chief concern is to barter phony goodwill for rabid fanboy loyalty. But still, at least it seems like they listen. In comparison, Nintendo's marketing arm seems to reside somewhere in the clouds, atop the summit of an unreachable mountain, with statements coming forth only when absolutely necessary, and many questions are just simply forbidden to ask. (When will Wii get storage space/SD card access? Why separate Friend Codes for console and games? Why can't we get a decent console Pokemon game? Why not a Virtual Console Channel option for organizing downloaded games? When are we getting that DS demo channel? Why isn't there a system-level screenshot function? Why did Nintendo farm out Nintendo Power when at the top of their game? Why does Galaxy have such pathetic interaction with Wii system features? Why aren't more Wii games taking advantage of the DS?)
