Famichatting: The End of Miiverse

The end has come for Nintendo’s social network Miiverse. Starting on November 7 at 10 pm PT in the US (November 8 at 3 pm in Japan and in Europe at 6 am GMT), the service is set to be discontinued. Originally launched alongside the Wii U in late 2012, Miiverse was Nintendo’s answer (kinda) to creating a safe online community for fans. It extended to the smartphones, tablets and PCs in April 2013 and then to the Nintendo 3DS that December. It was an interesting implementation into Nintendo hardware that never really took off like Nintendo probably envisioned. We are here to offer our condolences and to share our thoughts on the service and talk about what parts we would even like to see in future Nintendo services.

Danny:

I always liked the idea of Miiverse. The thought of an exclusive Nintendo community to discuss games isn’t exactly a new idea, but the implementation baked directly into Nintendo machines was awesome. Unfortunately, my hype for the service kinda died somewhere around six months after it launched. Even though it loaded up relatively quickly on the Wii U, it was still almost like a “job” to get in, post, comment, etc. Things did get a bit easier when it hit smartphones and tablets, but that still wasn’t enough to bring me back into the fold.

I really liked the ability to upload screenshots and while Nintendo has made strides with the Switch, Miiverse (after a few updates) has a bit of a leg up in that regard - the ability to save the screens in an album online. I really hope that Nintendo does something similar with My Nintendo. This whole posting one screenshot at a time thing to Twitter really annoys me!

James:

Initially when I read that Wii U Chat and Nintendo TVii were ending I laughed mockingly, who ever used those things anyway? Skype that takes five minutes to load, and a TV service most TVs have built in anyway, who cares. Then I read that Miiverse was part of that severance package and I had to rethink my trolly ways…..a little.

Like Danny said, Miiverse was a great idea but just terribly implemented. If you accidentally hit the Miiverse icon on the GamePad, you were treated to a multi-minute loading screen of a bunch of Miis holding hands around the world. In those many many minutes you could load Miiverse up on your tablet or smartphone, check you messages, reply to a few, check your regular email and Twitter feed, and still have enough time to make a cup of tea. If Miiverse loaded as fast as the news feed opens on your Switch, it could have been awesome.

The fact that you basically had dedicated “forums” of all your games, with the ability to add screenshots directly from the game, was a really great idea. If you couldn’t work out how to make Metroid crawl for example, you could just screengrab it and ask a fellow player to help you out. Spoiler tags on please.

The most usage I got out of it was when I was heavily into making Mario Maker stages. People would comment on them, (occasionally with Scrub Quotey consequences) and then I could reply directly and maybe even make adjustments from the feedback. Good times! I’m kind of sad to see the idea of Miiverse go away, because the idea is good. Improve on the implementation, don’t throw the baby out with the dish water!

Sairus:

Miiverse has always been a mixed bag for me. My first impression of the service was confusion and complete disinterest. Why would I ever use this when there is an actual internet full of actual forums and things available on my PC or phone? I ignored the service for most of my time on the Wii U.

Eventually I saw the appeal of having instant, dedicated forums to the game I was playing right now, especially with the Wii U’s tablet screen. Being able to ask for help on difficult sections, complete with screenshots of those parts without needing specialist PC equipment is a really clever feature.

However, as appealing as all that is, the system was completely crippled by its atrocious loading times. What should have been something that can be brought up as quick as the Home Menu at any time was instead locked behind a sometimes several minute loading wall. It basically took the same level of commitment to access Miiverse as it would to turn on an actual game. Games will virtually always win that battle,.

Seeing the Miiverse go is not terribly unexpected, even outside of the rumors circling recently in that area. Nintendo have a pretty clear track record of abandoning any online infrastructure for their older generation systems, though I’m not sure it ever happened as fast before.

Ultimately I am a little sad the system is gone though. Loading times and sometimes ridiculous moderating of content by Nintendo aside, the Miiverse was a beloved hangout by those that still use it. It was a genuinely useful idea, and it’s implementation in some games like Smash Bros and Splatoon was fantastic. It was such an integral part of Splatoon that its functionality was brought back just for Splatoon 2 after all!

I really hope Nintendo doesn’t just treat it as a failed experiment and toss it aside. I’m still hoping a Miiverse 2.0 for the Switch will arrive someday, even if I have basically no interest in using it.

Ty:

I sent/posted maybe five things on it. Most were blocked outright by Nintendo’s filters despite actually being pretty innocuous, like putting my Twitter handle in my profile or sending a friend request with a “kill the Batman” line in it. That sort of hyper-moderation obviously doesn’t work, since the thing looked like some caveman Yahoo answers landfill by the end anyway. Miiverse was a good idea that was fucked up by idiot shit somewhere along the line, but I guess that’s the story with pretty much everything Nintendo makes anymore. Also, it’s a grim reminder that Nintendo doesn’t really sustain their online services long-term or transition them forward.