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Put Hatsune Miku on Your Windows Desktop

As we're just days away from the theatrical release of the Hatsune Miku movie COLORFUL STAGE! The Movie: A Miku Who Can't Sing, fans can get their own Miku on their desktop to play with, decorate their windows, or just keep them company while they work, study, or game. Developer infiniteloop launched its Desktop Mate PC application on Wednesday with its first DLC (downloadable content) character Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku.

Desktop Mate is a application in which cute mascots will interact with all your mouse movements. The characters can also bounce between windows and react to being "pet." The base program is free-to-play on PC via Steam, and the initial download is 314.11 megabytes as of press time. While the free-to-play version features the company's mascot Aiel-tan (pictured left), the Hatsune Miku DLC is available for US$15.

Minimum system requirements to run the program include the Windows 10 or 11 operating system (64-bit), Intel Core i5-8250U 1.6GHz or AMD Ryzen 3 3300U processor, 8 gigabytes of RAM (random-access memory), Intel UHD Graphics 730 or Radeon VEGA 8 GPU (graphics processing unit), and 500 megabytes of available storage space.

Users can customize the character's size and volume as well as choose between three graphics presets. The program averages about 225.3 megabytes of memory usage when graphics are set to high. (But that can vary based on the user's system.)

Miku is currently the only DLC character available for the program, but infiniteloop has plans to add new characters as well as new ways to interact with them, as the company further develops the product. Hopefully, the developers will add a "minimize to system tray" option in one of these upcoming updates, to make the program seem less like an isolated tool and more like programs like Wallpaper Engine that can be staples for your desktop.

Crypton Future Media originally developed Hatsune Miku using Yamaha's Vocaloid software. The name refers to both the software voicebank and its anthropomorphic mascot, who is marketed as a virtual idol. The character performed at the 23rd Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 12 and also toured North America last year for the first time since 2018. The tour as well as the one in Europe the same year garnered criticism for using an LED screen instead of the trademark projection on a transparent screen that Crypton Future Media has used in the past..

The character has also collaborated with the Love Live! Sunshine!! project's Aqours unit for the song "BANZAI! digital trippers" and has appeared in the Dropkick on My Devil! X television anime.

COLORFUL STAGE! The Movie: A Miku Who Can't Sing (Gekijо̄ban Project Sekai: Kowareta Sekai to Utaenai Miku, or The Broken World and a Miku Who Can't Sing), the anime film based on the Project Sekai: Colorful Stage feat. Hatsune Miku smartphone game, will premiere on January 17.

The Project Sekai: Colorful Stage feat. Hatsune Miku smartphone game launched in Japan in September 2020. The game is a collaboration between Sega, Crypton Future Media, and Colorful Palette, a subsidiary of Craft Egg. Sega and Colorful Palette released the game globally as Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! on iOS and Android devices in December 2021. The game inspired a mini anime adaptation titled Petit Seka (Puchi Seka).

Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku (Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku -Miku to Issho ni Exercise-), a new game in Imagineer's Fitness Boxing (Fit Boxing) series with Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku, launched for Nintnedo Switch in Japan on March 7 and in the WEST. on September 5.

Source: Desktop Mate Hatsune Miku DLC's Steam page via Hachima Kiko, Siliconera