Nintendo Introduces Wii U's Miiverse

Addressing the world at a presentation today, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata introduced the Wii U's Miiverse, a social universe for the console.

The Miiverse is a catch-all term referring to the Wii U's social functions, as well as a Mii hub in the console.

Gamers will be able to text others (via a typical virtual keyboard interface or even hand-drawn notes via a stylus or your finger) on the Wii U GamePad while you're playing a game. A cheesy demo they showed of it in action depicted a frustrated gamer asking for help on a boss battle. His message was then pushed to the Wii U community at large, as well as the cellphone of a friend. Replies to his query then came in on the Wii U screen.

Messages you send into the Miiverse can come with chosen backgrounds (like a note sent on flowery stationary), and you can select a facial expression for your Mii, who is shown along with your message. Iwata also mentioned that gamers could send screenshots to each other, as well as created content.

The Miiverse also manifests itself in a central plaza that appears when you turn on the Wii U. This plaza (which can be accessed while you're playing a game without having to quit out of it) is populated by Miis from the system itself, those of your friends, and those of people in your country and who speak your language. These Miis will congregate in real-time around icons of the games they are playing. You will also see speech bubbles above Miis' heads if they have a message.

Iwata said that all Wii U games will support Miiverse communication, and developers themselves are free to use the feature in any way they see fit. Although Iwata said that he wanted to avoid giving away game spoilers while players are playing, he showed a screenshot of Mii comments from real-life people populating a game world while someone is playing it.

He also mentioned that Miiverse features don't require the use of the TV the system is hooked up to, and that they can be used in a single-player game.

Nintendo plans to have Miiverse functionality accessible via any device that can use a browser, but he said this will happen sometime after launch.