Nintendo’s Miiverse was an experiment. With Sony & Microsoft battling hard in the online multiplayer space during the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, the House of Mario was aiming for a push beyond their WiiConnect musings. Sure, the Wii had some interesting niche ideas like Everybody Votes and a basic form of messaging, but the value was in the Mii characters themselves.
And so, with the 2012 launch of the Wii U, the company unleashed Miiverse. And now it says goodbye.
The social network, a sort of mashup of Twitter, web forums and Second Life, had a small but active group of users. We could see what everyone was currently playing, illustrated via armies of Miis trotting around our home screen. We could take snapshots of our games and post them on the social network as a sort of rudimentary achievement system. We could sketch — oh baby could we sketch — and make artwork that would become strangely viral within its confines, sometimes posted online elsewhere. And when the service came to the 3DS, it grew tenfold with new members and ideas.
But now it’s gone.
Earlier this year the company informed fans that the service was set to end on November 7 (yesterday). Many of us chose to ask for our posts to be downloaded, while others have been diligently archiving all of Miiverse for future generations. The Switch doesn’t include Miiverse, instead relying on in-game messaging (that’s oddly similar to the service). To close out the social network, Nintendo had fans post to a special thank you thread, and has collected all of those to create a goodbye mosaic of its own that’s both sad and oddly charming.
Goodbye Miiverse, and thanks for the memes.
Source: Nintendo
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