Miiverse: Nintendo's Social Network

One of the most overlooked features of the Wii U by the video game media is Miiverse. Miiverse is a dedicated Wii U social network. The point of Miiverse is to pretty much talk about the games that you are playing, or are interested in on the Wii U.

Often times when I'm playing Wii U, I'll find myself distracted by Miiverse posts. It's funny, sometimes, I'll spend more time on Miiverse than in the actual game that I'm reading about. People often have unique and interesting things to say about the games that they are playing.

Miiverse has several unique features. The most notable one is the drawing tool. This tool is responsible for many, many talented artists posting on Miiverse. The results are often surprising, considering all of them were drawn on the Wii U Game Pad's touch pad. Among some of the most impressive are the pixel art done.

An example of some popular artwork form the Super Mario World page.

Another of the unique features of Miiverse is the ability to post screen shots of the game that you are playing. All you have to do is tap an icon on the screen to do this. This is helpful for people trying to ask for information about a particular part of the game, and it's fun to see the weird glitches that people sometimes find. Recently, I posted a screen shot about my death in Mega Man when I was literally a few steps from a life item.

Me bitching about dying in Mega Man.

For the posts themselves, you can do a couple of cool things. First, you can tag the post for spoilers. If your post is covering spoilers for the game, it will be tagged as such to other users, and conversely, if someone else tags spoilers, you won't be able to see their posts without your wanting to. You can also choose to see all posts tagged with spoilers on any particular game that you choose. Secondly, you can choose the emotion that you want to convey in the post. Since every post is made as if your Mii was speaking to the community, it displays this emotion on their faces.

Me joining a conversation about the difficulty of Classic vs. Contemporary Mario games.

You can also post 'Yeahs' which are like 'Likes' on Facebook. Sometimes, you will come across people begging for 'Yeahs', but when Nintendo deemed these people as an interruption to the service, they banned the practice. Sometimes, still, you'll see them buried within posts that contain actual content.

Miiverse is also tightly moderated by Nintendo. Only once in a while will you find content outside of the PG-13 range of intensity. When you do come across it, you can be sure that it won't remain there for long. Miiverse automatically filters certain words from the text input section. When you see inappropriate content, usually, it's in a drawn post. Users can report posts that violate the TOS agreement, as well as posts that contain spoilers, but aren't marked as such.

Miiverse also gives developers a way to communicate directly with their fans. Members of the community who are developers are authenticated by a green check at the corner of their Mii profile pic. Developers have already made use of Miiverse to chat with their fans, and to receive feedback. Gaijin Games used it to hear about glitches in Bit.Trip Runner 2 on the day of its release. Nintendo uses it to receive feedback, and to post news 'directly to you'. Miiverse was also, in part, instrumental in the decision to bring Earthbound to North American and European Virtual Console.

Recently, Nintendo made Miiverse available for users outside of Wii U. You can now access Miiverse from web browsers on PC and on smart phones. The interface is pretty much the same as on Wii U. For some reason, though, you aren't able to make new posts outside the Wii U. There is a problem with the fact that you can only post 100 characters at a time.  The browser version doesn't give you a counter, and if you go over the 100 mark, you have to just guess and keep cutting your post down to get to 100. You are also not able to create an account from the browser version. Your Miiverse information is tied to your Nintendo Network ID that you get when you create user data on the Wii U's system.

The very first thing that I did when I heard that it was released for browsers, was try to access Miiverse on my 3DS. I couldn't. I got a message saying that Miiverse was incompatible with my browser. This seriously baffled me. Why would I not be able to access this Nintendo exclusive network on another Nintendo device? I remember Nintendo saying that Miiverse would be coming to 3DS later, but it doesn't make sense that I can't access it from the 3DS's web browser. Just a minor gripe.

Miiverse really sets a standard for gaming social networking. It's really fun to talk to people about the games that you are playing. I'm really looking forward to see how it will be implemented in the future, and how it will act on the 3DS. In the meantime, I'll keep reading and posting.