Nintendo is currently riding high on the success of its “Classic” retro console relaunches and the incredible demand for the portable hybrid Switch. Looking ahead, Nintendo would rather you just forget the Wii U ever existed, and it’s going to help bury that terrible memory by killing off the Miiverse social network which was born on the troubled console and never managed to catch much traction.
Miiverse first debuted in November of 2012 for the Wii U. It included communities based on specific games where users could post their thoughts and reactions. It was incredibly half-baked from the start, and failed to get any better as the months dragged on. A smartphone app was launched in April of 2013, and Miiverse also landed on the 3DS in December of that year, but there was no saving it.
Nintendo showed just how little faith it had in Miiverse when it left it off of the Switch, and it shouldn’t be surprising that the company is now axing the service on November 8th.
Unfortunately, while the death of Miiverse itself isn’t a terrible loss, the Miiverse functionality built into many of the games on the Wii U will certainly be missed, at least by some. According to Nintendo, 117 titles had Miiverse functionality, and those features will now be disabled going forward. The impact will be felt greatest in titles like Super Mario Maker, where users will no longer be able to comment on each other’s level designs, and Mario Kart 8, where the Miiverse-connected tournament mode will be disabled.
