Wii Nintendo's worst blatant rippoff I've seen in years

[Mirage]

So the Nintendo Wii has these characters you can create called "Mii's" (Me's). They let you customize your character to actually look similar to how you look in real life. Then you can use these characters in certain Wii games and minigames such as Wii Sports. You can also take your Mii online and hang out with your friends Mii's.

Well, that being said. There is a website that has been up and running since January of 2005 called Wee World. In this "Wee" world you can create customizable "Mee" characters that look like you...

Welcome to WeeWorld

The Nintendo Wii came out after this and uses the terms Wii and Mii....

I like the idea but I have to say it's a bit surprising to see that Nintendo would rip it off to this level. It's almost an exact copy of what WeeWorld was shooting for, just within the online world of the Nintendo Wii.

I wonder how they were able to do this legally. It can't be that WeeWorld can't afford to fight Nintendo.. Even AOL seems to be in on the Wee/Mee website.

http://aim.weeworld.com/default.aspx

Something went down here and I'm not really sure how this was able to happen.

 

[CaliforniaSteve]

Thats really sad, to see Nintendo do something like that.

 

[Doc]

It's actually been done for a long time. There's several of these programs available that are, basically, internet chat rooms with sprites. You can even play small games. The two I can think of off of the top of my head are called Habbo Hotel and something people called "pally".

It's not that Nintendo ripped them off, I think it's an open idea and lots of people use it. Just look at cartoons.

 

[CaliforniaSteve]

The concept doesnt upset me as much as the name does. Meh, I don't have a Wii so it doesn't apply to me anyway.

 

[Mirage]

Well yeah, the concept of a customizable character isn't anything new. Habbo Hotel did it back in the late 90's even.

I'm with CaliforniaSteve though with my thoughts on the name similarities. Wii/Mii vs. Wee/Mee? I mean.. come on.. It's Like selling a beverage called Spryte.

Wii and Wee are both pronounced exactly the same. Same with Sprite and Spryte. Somehow I don't think Sprite would stand for it and I'm not sure how WeeWorld is either.

Not that I don't like what Nintendo has done with the Wii and Mii system. It works very nicely with the system. It's just unfortunate that they can't claim original rights to the names they are using.

 

[marshall]

and you didnt see this happening? i was suspicious after mario. a small italian guy with a mustache and wearing red overalls! :sick: stupid little freak beat me at his own game...

 

[califbob]

I'm not sure, nor am I an expert in Nintendo, but I believe the Wii has been around in Japan for a bit longer than the Mii website has been live.

Just Mii's to cents.

That's just lame, sorry.

 

[dDave]

There are a lot of Nintendo games the have steadily declined, The Mario games are a good example of this, Super Mario Bros. was great, Super Mario 64 was awesome, Super Mario Sunshine was good for a while. Another great example would be the Donkey Kong Games. The original Donkey Kong Game was great, Both Donkey Kong Country Games were amazing, Donkey Kong 64 put Donkey Kong on it's all time high, then Donkey Konga came out, no offense to those of you out there who play this game but I just don't think that it was very good. Starfox also follows this trail of good games going to not as good and eventually they are going to crash and burn.