Miiverse, Nintendo’s bespoke social network on Wii U and 3DS, is getting a major redesign, that will radically change how users interact with the service.
Originally, Miiverse was structured as a half community, half microblog platform. You could make posts for the games that you owned, and other players of those games would be able to see them, ‘Yeah’ them, and comment on them. You could add screenshots to your posts, and on both Wii U and 3DS, make drawings instead of text posts.
Nintendo allowed you to pause your game at any time to make these posts, and also found ways to take those posts and put them back in the games. For example,Super Smash Bros for Wii U’s Miiverse stage is literally filled with posts of the characters you are playing.
Nintendo hoped fans would use the community to give each other tips about the game, and/or just talk about said games. However, users (this writer included) would ultimately find the network too limiting.
Nintendo did tweak the service progressively, but this update is akin to Twitter turning into Facebook. It’s that radical.
Let’s look at what Miiverse will become in summer 2015:
· You will be able to collect as much as 100 screenshots and make albums of them. These will be private albums you can look at any time you’d like.
· Opening Miiverse while playing a game will now open a Play Journal. These journals will automatically take screenshots, unless the game doesn’t support it. These Journal Entries will be replacing your activity feed.
· Communities have expanded. There is a section for Play Journal Entries, a section just for drawings, and a section for discussions. In this way, users can easily find discussions they like to get into, or just browse drawings, any time they want. Discussions will be dependent on user tags so that people can find what they want.
Changes to any social network are always a huge risk, but Nintendo seems to have used the data they have from users to decide on these changes. There’s also a possibility that these will have a connection to the upcoming Club Nintendo replacement incentive program.
Are these the kinds of changes you wanted to see in Miiverse? What else would you have wanted to see? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
