Miiverse

Miiverse was a social network for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U that operated from 2012 to 2017. The service was created by Nintendo System Development and Hatena, and powered by the Nintendo Network. Miiverse was integrated into many video games, and allowed players to interact and share their experiences through handwritten messages or drawings, text, screenshots, and sometimes game videos in dedicated communities. It was available via any web browser, and a dedicated app version was originally planned for tablets and smartphones. All users who signed up for a Nintendo Network ID were automatically given a Miiverse profile per account, represented by the Mii avatar connected to said Nintendo Network ID.

Miiverse was announced on June 3, 2012, during a pre-E3 2012 Nintendo Direct event; the service initially launched on the launch of the Wii U on November 18, 2012, and was later made available for the 3DS on December 9, 2013. A web-based portal was opened on April 25, 2013.

Miiverse was discontinued on November 8, 2017, at 10:00 PM PST. The platform has since had similar messaging systems in some Nintendo Switch games, and retrospectives highlight the quirky, albeit absurd nature of the posts present.

History

Miiverse was originally conceived by Junya Kondo, then-president of Hatena, and produced by Kiyoshi Mizuki. Mizuki had been discussing the Wii U's network service during his time working on the Japanese-exclusive Wii no Ma, and had wondered about the idea of incorporating Mii characters into the service. After talking with several developers and employees at Nintendo, others gradually started to pick up on the idea, including Katsuya Eguchi and Hisashi Nogami. Inspired by Flipnote Studio, Kondo sent a proposal to then-president of Nintendo Satoru Iwata, who was impressed with the idea.

During development of the service, Hatena used a cardboard mockup of the Wii U Gamepad and a sheet of paper to simulate the experience of browsing to ease development. Miiverse was described by several developers as being an "empathy network", emphasizing the connectivity aspects compared to other social media platforms and Nintendo services.

The platform was first announced on June 3, 2012, during an E3 Nintendo Direct presentation. Satoru Iwata stated that Miiverse was directly integrated into the Wii U system and its games, providing player data that could be filtered to other player's copies of Wii U games. Nintendo confirmed on June 21st that Miiverse would not be able to connect to other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Features

Miiverse allowed users to share accomplishments, comments, and handwritten notes with other users. Miiverse was integrated into the system menu of the Wii U and 3DS, and social interactions would also occur within supported games and applications. A user was able to suspend any game (except for '' Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS'' on original models of the 3DS) to access Miiverse functions via the Home menu, and then return to the game at the point it was left. Posts were divided into various "communities" dedicated to specific games, series, applications, or interests, and players could post the current screenshot from the currently running game to attach to their posts. Certain games, such as '' Sonic Lost World'', allowed players to share in-game items with other players via Miiverse. Other games, such as '' Mario Kart 8'', let the player unlock virtual stamps that could be used in drawings on Miiverse.

Certain games and downloadable applications had Miiverse integration built in to the software. ''Super Smash Bros for Wii U'' included a stage dedicated to Miiverse in June 2015, exclusive to the platform, showing various posts from communities that were added to support individual characters who were included in the game. In August 2013, Animal Crossing Plaza was released as a Wii U eShop exclusive for users to interact with and learn more about the Animal Crossing: New Leaf game, running until the end of 2014.

Nintendo's president at Miiverse's launch, Satoru Iwata, stated that the network would be monitored through software as well as a human resource team to ensure that the content shared by users was appropriate and that no spoilers were shared. In addition, posting friend codes on the service was not allowed.

Updates

On January 30, 2013, Miiverse was updated to show favorite communities in the dedicated communities menu, as well as to include easier navigation. On February 7, 2013, the Miiverse Code of Conduct was updated and no longer allowed players under the age of 13 years to directly send or receive friend requests within Miiverse. On April 4, 2013, Miiverse was updated to group communities by category, such as "Wii U Games" and "Virtual Console", and providing a standard limit of 100 posts displayed at any time.

On April 25, 2013, Miiverse became available on Internet-enabled PCs and smartphones in beta form; some features were not present such as the ability to directly make posts. However, users could browse communities, write text comments, and like posts (with a "Yeah!"). On April 26, an update brought Wii Remote, Wii U Pro Controller and Classic Controller compatibility, which would be used for everything apart from writing posts and comments. The input screen for handwriting was displayed on the TV as well as on the Wii U GamePad, so that other users could see what the GamePad user was writing or drawing.

On May 15, 2013, users could attach game screenshots to comments, something that until then could only be done to posts. Additionally, a blocked user could no longer follow the user that blocked them. On May 29, further updates brought some missing features not present in the web version of Miiverse from the Wii U version, such as profile and privacy settings.

On June 12, 2013, the web version of Miiverse was updated to allow sharing on other social media websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr. On June 26, the character limit for posts and comments was increased from 100 characters to 200 characters, along with changing filter settings for popular posts. On July 30, the Wii U and web versions of Miiverse were updated to support tags such as "Question" and "Impressions" to user posts. Tags attached by users are colored blue, as opposed to posts made directly from games which are colored green. Tag availability varies by community. On the Wii U version, the character limit for messages to other users was also changed from 100 to 200 characters.

Following the September 11, 2013 update, users could make posts directly to the Activity Feed. These posts would not appear in any community, but would appear in the users', friends', and followers' activity feeds. On October 1, the Miiverse splashscreen was changed that displayed the current time in major cities around the globe.

In November 2013, the service was updated to display more communities at one time and "Yeahs" given to posts were no longer visible on a user's profile page. On December 9, 2013, the service was launched for the 3DS, along with the implementation of Nintendo Network IDs. Players were unable to submit and manage friend requests or send private messages.On June 24, 2015, a Miiverse update made all Miiverse restrictions for one user impact all other users on the same console. This was in response to a common tactic of users who were banned simply making another account on the same console.

Redesign

On July 29, 2015, Nintendo released a redesign of Miiverse in order to maintain the services focus on being about games. The redesign incorporated the following changes:

* Removal of the ability to post in the Activity Feed, and replacing it with a "Play Journal," s
* Save up to 100 screenshots in a private album
* A daily post limit in which users could only make up to 30 posts a day
* Categorizing posts as Play Journal entries, drawings, or discussions

The redesign did not impact every community, with one notable community left unchanged being New Super Luigi U. This led to users posting anything that they wanted, within Miiverse's Code of Conduct.

Shutdown

In July 2017, a leak found text within Wii U firmware system update 5.5.2 with text suggesting that the service was soon to come to an end. On August 29, 2017, Nintendo of America announced that Miiverse would be permanently discontinued on November 8, 2017. Users could request to be sent a copy of all posts and screenshots they had made while using the service, however, replies to said posts would not be included. A month before shutdown, on October 5, Nintendo opened the "Everybody's Message" community so that users could send their goodbyes to the service, a number of which would be incorporated into a giant mosaic.

The service was shut down on November 8, 2017, at 10:00 pm on PST, the same date that Wii U Chat was discontinued. The day before the service shut down, users took to X (formerly known as Twitter) with the hashtag #MiiverseMemories to reflect on the nature of the platform as well as cherished memories and artwork they had posted. The mosaic from the "Everybody's Message" community replaced the layout of the site following the shutdown.

On January 3, 2018, an unofficial archive of most of Miiverse's posts, equivalent to almost 17 TB, titled "Archiverse", was uploaded. The archive contains roughly 133 million posts, 217 million replies, 76 million screenshots, and 72 million drawings. The archive also contains communities created temporarily for events such as E3.

Legacy

On January 13, 2017, David Young of Nintendo of America announced that Miiverse would not release on the then-upcoming Nintendo Switch. However, certain Switch games such as '' Splatoon 2'', '' Splatoon 3'' and '' Super Mario Maker 2'' include community messaging features that is reminiscent of Miiverse's handwritten message/drawing function.

Retrospectives of Miiverse generally highlight the platforms' less than serious nature with respect to its posts. The content on Miiverse would often be the focal point of social media posts and Youtube series making fun of it, partly contributing to nostalgia for the platform post shutdown.

Miiverse was the inspiration for the indie game ''Videoverse'', released on Steam in 2022. The platform was referenced in the The Super Mario Bros. Movie, with an in-universe plumbing website referencing a user who would note the various graphics of water in Wii U games. After a change to the social media site X where the Likes tab is hidden from other users, in June 2024, users began replying to an image of the "Yeah!" button, similarly used on Miiverse to the "like" button, to tweets to publicly "like" said tweets.

Notes

References

{{Social networking services
Internet properties established in 2012
Internet properties disestablished in 2017
Nintendo Network
Defunct social networking services