News just hit us that Nintendo has released a new update to the Nintendo Wii's Menu, but Wii Menu Update v3.3 does more than deliver great news for owners of the console. Nintendo hid a little present inside the upgrade which permanently deals a blow to the Wii homebrew community's efforts. The company has stated that unauthorized modifications have been rampant, and now they're putting an end to it. Get more details, plus a response from the WiiBrew community, at the full story.

Here's something cool for you to try out on your Miis. A resourceful Wii owner by the name of David Hawley has found a way to create Miis with different-colored pants. Through some creative hex editing, you can also make your very own Special Mii with matching gold pants.

There's a catch with the Special Miis, though. According to Hawley, these Miis can't be copied, and you can't do everything you normally would with them. Hawley says that the following message appears if you try to send your Special Mii to someone else:

When you send a Special Mii, it will leave your Mii Plaza. Also, if the friend you send it to already has a special Mii or doesn't use the Mii Channel, the special Mii you sent could vanish.

Also, if you try to copy your Special Mii to your Wiimote, it gets moved instead of copied. You also can't have two identical Special Miis in the Mii Plaza. Changing their names don't work, too.

To find out just how you can make your very own Special Mii, click on the "read" link below. There are also instructions there on how to create Foreign Miis (the ones with blue pants).

Apparently, people who own multiple consoles have been having a lot of fun by mixing and matching the features of each unit, and the results, you have to admit, are pretty darn cool.

It all started with the Mii figure of Gears of War star, Marcus Fenix. Now, using the face-mapping features of Rainbow Six: Vegas, we have people's Mii faces showing up (I bet the makers never saw THAT coming), as shown in this image which was taken by one of the guys from Kotaku.

Of course, some people have pointed out that the head size is too big and may just be the perfect target for a sniper, and that the "glow in the dark" look won't help when taking cover (though some have suggested that scanning a darker image may do the trick), but we don't really think that all this is going to stop the imminent flood of face-mapping experiments that are sure to follow.

As early as now, there have already been ideas floating around which include face-mapping pets, newspaper mugshots, celebrity Miis, and various household objects. So don't be surprised if one day, while playing Rainbow Six, you turn around to find yourself face to face with... I dunno... some anime character Mii? Gandhi Mii?

Almost everyone and their neighbor's pet parakeet has, as some would say, "signed their soul to the bandwagon" and registered their own MySpace account. Also, if you've managed to be one of the lucky 400,000++ who've managed to score a Wii console, then chances are you also have a Mii avatar. Could you put the two together?

Apparently more so now. Because while the Mii Plaza is allowing Wii console users to interact with each other, the whole culture of the Mii avatar just got richer. Jeff's been hard at work with helping the Mii community grow and he wants our help to spread the word. He's created an online version of the Mii Plaza where you can register your Mii creations and show it off to the world, full with profiles and statistics. You can interact with other Mii artists and exchange characters or play games with, even.

Currently, he's still got lots of plans to spruce up the site, and maybe in the future, even find a way for it to seamlessly connect to the Wii.

Well, for the others who weren't lucky enough to bag a Wii console, you can still create your own online Mii Avatar. For the lucky ones and their neighbor's pet parakeet, get clicking. The "Read" link leads you to MiiPlaza.net.

By now, the Mii Plaza is already filled with different and interesting-looking Miis. These Miis will play a pivotal role in Ninty's quest to emerge victorious in the next-gen wars. Aside from the fact that EA's The Sims for the Wii will be using them, this idea could endear the Wii to their new owners. But it could also bear the grunt of the gamers' disappointments.

Anyhow, flickr user hokusai_eddy is having a grand time creating them Miis. In fact, he just created and posted 13 of his Mii creations. He made hatless Luigi and Mario Mii, a Dick Cheney Mii, an Adolf Hitler Mii, a Kim Jong-il Mii, a Kate Moss mii, and a Michael Jackson Mii, among many others, just for kicks. Have some fun trying to figure out which is which, and if you have some "interesting-looking" Miis of your own, don't hesitate to share it with us.

More Miis after the jump!

More cross-platform pollination going on here. Epic Games' Gears of War isn't the kind of title, which for a couple of reasons (technical and gory content-wise), that would end up on a Wii. But with all the celebrity Mii-tooling going on, someone decided to submit to GameVideos his own celebrity Mii tool-around.

Enter Marcus Fenix. Soldier, hero, and now, Mii. No commentary from GameVideos, but by pausing the vid at each customization option, you should be able to figure out which facial parts you need to plug in. Too bad those bulky suits of armor (or a body-building option) aren't included in the Mii.

And with that rough-hewn mug pasted onto a Mii body... er, we can't exactly say that the results are adorable (they are in fact, uh, debatable. Does he really bear a passing resemblance to Marcus?). But we can say this: the sight of the Locust Horde suddenly Emerging into the Mii Plaza would be a darn good sight to watch indeed - unless they've been Mii-fied, too.

Speaking of which, where's Dom? Thought you couldn't quit him.

Over at GayGamer, we noticed a pretty good write-up of the functions of the Mii, Nintendo's virtual avatars for your gaming fun. In fact, they not only explained what you can do with the Mii, but also took the time to feel giddy over making avatars.

First off, they explain the purpose of the Mii Plaza, which you can see above. The Mii Plaza acts like a central hub for all the avatars you've created, as well as the avatars you've picked up from friends who own Wiis.

You can store a total of 100 Wii avatars, by the way, so whether you make your own or wait for people to send you theirs is your choice.

Sending and receiving Miis is another cute feature. Creating a Mii avatar is essentially visualizing a permanent profile for each avatar, complete with allowances and restrictions for mingling and travel. Mingling denotes sending your avatars to other people, while travel refers to how you accept Miis into your Mii Parade. As the author explains of the service:

With the mingle feature on, if you send a Mii to another Wii, it will show up in the Mii Parade first. Then you can transfer that Mii to your Plaza, so it will show up in your various games. If you set the Mingle feature off, when you send it to another system, the Mii will appear first in the Mii Plaza.

In other words, your Mii avatars could be in the audience of a Wii Sports baseball game, or it could turn up as one of the players. Travel restrictions also affect whether you accept other gamers' avatars into your Mii Parade, so you have to set that as well. Overall, definitely handy for getting kids to enjoy their games, and something interesting to do when you're bored, at the very least, and it's very cute.