Miitomo

Nintendo's first smartphone app: a Mii that asked you questions and told your friends the answers, switched off two years later

Shut down
19902026

Miitomo was Nintendo's first smartphone application, released in Japan on 17 March 2016 and worldwide on 31 March, built with DeNA. It used your Mii character to ask personal questions and share the answers with friends, with clothes and Miifoto photo tools sold through in-app purchases. It launched alongside the My Nintendo rewards programme, was downloaded millions of times, lost its audience within months and was closed on 9 May 2018.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2015
  2. 17 March 2015 other
    Nintendo and DeNA announce a phone partnership

    Five apps promised.

  3. 2016
  4. 17 March 2016 Launch
    Miitomo launches in Japan

    My Nintendo starts the same day.

  5. 31 March 2016 Feature
    Worldwide release

    Top free app in several countries.

  6. 15 December 2016 other
    Super Mario Run arrives

    Nintendo moves to games with known names.

  7. 2018
  8. 24 January 2018 Shutdown announced
    Nintendo announces the end of service

    In-app purchases stop the same day.

  9. 9 May 2018 Shutdown
    Miitomo servers are switched off

The site through time

Read the old front page here, in one piece, from our own capture: miitomo.com, 28 May 2016 →

Browse miitomo.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2016 2017 2018 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Nintendo 2016–2018 Founded Built with DeNA as the first of five planned phone apps

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Nintendo announced on 24 January 2018 that Miitomo would end service on 9 May 2018, with in-app purchases stopped that same day in January. The app had been downloaded millions of times at launch but its audience fell away quickly, and Nintendo had moved on to games with familiar characters, Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp.

Our analysis: Miitomo was Nintendo answering the question of what a Nintendo phone app should be with the most Nintendo answer possible: not a game, but a toy. Your Mii asked what you had eaten, you answered, and your friends read it in a voice you had given the character. It was charming and had nothing to do the second day. Nintendo learned the lesson quickly, and everything it shipped afterwards was a game with a name people already knew. The service also carried My Nintendo, the rewards programme, which is why its closure took a piece of that with it.

History [edit]

A Nintendo app that was not a game

Nintendo spent years saying it would never put its games on phones, then in 2015 signed a partnership with DeNA and promised five applications. The first, on 17 March 2016 in Japan and 31 March everywhere else, was Miitomo, and it was not a game. You made a Mii, gave it a voice and a personality, and it asked you things: what did you eat today, what is your favourite school subject, what would you do with a million yen. Your answers went to friends who had also answered, and their answers came back to you.

Around that sat the things Nintendo is good at: clothes to collect through a drop game called Miitomo Drop, Miifoto for putting your Mii in photographs with speech bubbles, and My Nintendo, the new rewards programme, which launched at the same time and gave points for using the app. It was downloaded a few million times in its first week and was briefly the top free app in Japan and the United States.

Nothing to do tomorrow

The problem showed up fast. Once the questions ran thin there was no reason to open it, and there was no game underneath to keep anyone. Nintendo shipped Super Mario Run that December and Fire Emblem Heroes in early 2017, both of which people played for longer, and Miitomo drifted out of the announcements.

On 24 January 2018 Nintendo said the service would end on 9 May, stopped selling in-app currency that day, and offered a way to save your Miifoto pictures. On 9 May the servers went off and the app stopped working entirely, which is what happens to a social app with nothing stored on the phone.

The domain today

miitomo.com is gone and the app cannot be reinstalled. My Nintendo, the rewards programme it launched with, is still running.

Similar projects

Wunderlist The to-do app Microsoft bought to bury 2010–2020 Google Goggles Point your phone at a landmark, a book or a wine label and Google told you what it was, eight years before Lens replaced it 2009–2018 Astrid The to-do app with the friendly squid, four million users, bought by Yahoo and closed 96 days later 2008–2013 Houseparty The lockdown living room, closed by Fortnite's owner 2016–2021 Secret Anonymous confessions from your own contacts, worth $100 million for about a year 2014–2015 Google Latitude See where your friends are on a map: Google's location sharing, four years ahead of its time and folded into Google+ in 2013 2009–2013

Sources [edit]

  1. Nintendo axes Miitomo, its first smartphone game BBC News 25 January 2018
  2. Nintendo's first smartphone app launches in Japan TechCrunch 17 March 2016
  3. Miitomo arrives in the US and other markets TechCrunch 29 March 2016 [archived]
  4. Nintendo kills Miitomo, its first smartphone app MakeUseOf 26 January 2018 [archived]

Last verified: 20 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).