Both Microsoft and Sony were completely caught off guard when Nintendo launched the Wii in 2006, which introduced the new Mii feature, a kind of simple avatar that could be made to look surprisingly lifelike with minimal effort. It was a huge success, leading to the release of countless Mii-based games, and both Microsoft and Sony eventually adopted the concept for their own consoles.
Even today, Miis live on, most recently in the newly released Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, but they can also be used for other things, like catching criminals. The Instagram account Collect is now highlighting and reminding us of a strange crime story from 2008 involving a hit-and-run accident.
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Investigators chose to skip the usual sketch artists and instead use the Mii tools to recreate the perpetrator. Using these primitive yet effective tools, an image was created and printed alongside a photo of the vehicle.
And... that was enough. People recognised the perpetrator and were able to identify him. It was the first time Nintendo was used to solve a crime, something that later led to the case being included in the Guinness Book of World Records.