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Fun Club Do you think Nintendo could ever make Miiverse work again?

Mer.Saloon

Mer.Saloon

Chain Chomp
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Just a thought. I always thought Miiverse on Wii U was a pretty rad system, just hamstrung by how small the Wii U's audience was, and how much it tanked the performance of the thing.

People talked about how people had Twitter, and FB back then so the messageboard exclusive to the console was a doomed concept, but if Switch had Miiverse, the audience wouldn't be so small and so insular (I mean, no more insular than any other particular service.)

This is going with the assumption that Nintendo would learn lessons from the original Miiverse to improve it.
 
The big problem with Miiverse isn’t the platform or the tech. It’s the fact it needs to be effectively moderated and comply with child safety laws across multiple nations. Thats not something you can do with AI or just throwing tech at the problem, you need actual people to do the work. And a lot of people at that.

Nintendo doesn’t have the resources to handle that, especially at the scale needed for something like another breakout success akin to Wii, DS, or Switch.
 
No, but for a brief moment it gave us beautiful content

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100% I miss Miiverse so bad! infact this is the main reason I went searching for Nintendo Forums and stumbled across famiboards and joined here!
I had so much fun with Miiverse
 
Miiverse was great but as other posters have already noted, it doesn’t really make sense to bring back. Moderation seems like the biggest hurdle, but if I’m Nintendo I would rather have integration with the other social networks so users can share videos/screenshots with their friends. A lot of games in the Switch generation benefited from virality that likely reached people outside of the fanbase.
 
lilty said:
Miiverse was great but as other posters have already noted, it doesn’t really make sense to bring back. Moderation seems like the biggest hurdle, but if I’m Nintendo I would rather have integration with the other social networks so users can share videos/screenshots with their friends. A lot of games in the Switch generation benefited from virality that likely reached people outside of the fanbase.
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I think GAAS like Fortnite and Roblox have shown that you can make an insular community work. It's a matter of having the numbers to back that up.

I concede on the moderation front because that is a nightmare.
 
shoptroll said:
The big problem with Miiverse isn’t the platform or the tech. It’s the fact it needs to be effectively moderated and comply with child safety laws across multiple nations. Thats not something you can do with AI or just throwing tech at the problem, you need actual people to do the work. And a lot of people at that.

Nintendo doesn’t have the resources to handle that, especially at the scale needed for something like another breakout success akin to Wii, DS, or Switch.
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While the first paragraph is true, I don't think a lack resources straight up is as damning to Nintendo's online infrastructure/services (the social aspects especially) as their unwillingness to step into the current times. If they wanted to I'm sure they could implement proper moderation across countries; it's not an unheard of concept for their contemporaries, who've been cultivating their online systems for decades. They have the resources but seem to lack the know how or straight up just prefer to stick to their family friendly guise. Moderation is work but it's necessary, doesn't matter how large the scope of the community or platform is. It's a contingency.

It's not surprising either. They've had such a "speak no evil" approach to online communication that they don't really have a great basis to refer back to. I mean, I don't want a bunch of lewd sketches, swearing and heinous commentary, but I also don't prefer Nintendo babying me -- a thirty something who's grown up with their output. If you're gonna have online do it right and don't half ass the precautionary measures. The whole all in sugar, nothing in salt approach is archaic and lazy and honestly, it's asinine for Nintendo to try and be that bubble ecosystem if they're intent on expanding online play or communication between players.

Miiverse aside, because I do believe they're pushing off the table still, what you pointed out actually makes me super curious to see if they're going to adapt the Switch version of the eShop or do what usually do and redesign the entirety of it. It's about as barebones as it gets; it's decent framework. Actually using it is kind of a pain, but that's totally fixable with some reorganizing.
 
Putting aside its value as a social network, I appreciated that it made for a simple standardized text/image format any game could contribute to and draw from easily for passive sharing with players across the world. The Miiverse app itself was largely a convenient hub for browsing these.
 
lilty said:
Miiverse was great but as other posters have already noted, it doesn’t really make sense to bring back. Moderation seems like the biggest hurdle, but if I’m Nintendo I would rather have integration with the other social networks so users can share videos/screenshots with their friends. A lot of games in the Switch generation benefited from virality that likely reached people outside of the fanbase.
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This is definitely one the main factors (other than moderation) of why they got rid of it. It's basically free advertising to have people talking about your games with the potential of new customers to see it and want to get in on the hype.

However, with Twitter now being a dumpster fire of bots and racism, I do wonder if Nintendo is rethinking this approach. You can hardly post on that website anymore without getting a "link in bio" reply, or worse, an actually explicit video, in your replies. It's not safe for minors, and advertisers certainly don't want to be involved.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I think a dedicated fan community like Miiverse is needed now more than ever. I think there's almost no possibility they try again with that idea, though.
 
Conditions are somewhat more favorable to something like Miiverse now than when back when the Switch was releasing, with social media being in a decentralizing phase as older platforms decay and newer players aren't achieving tons of dominance, but whether that's enough to bring it back remains to be seen.
 
Pokemaniac said:
Conditions are somewhat more favorable to something like Miiverse now than when back when the Switch was releasing, with social media being in a decentralizing phase as older platforms decay and newer players aren't achieving tons of dominance, but whether that's enough to bring it back remains to be seen.
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The decentralization is one of the things I had on my mind when I made this thread. Atm there is no dominant player. Currently most of the old platforms haven't the same power as they used to have (except maybe Tiktok, but... well we know what's happening with that). Whether Nintendo could do it is another story.
 
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Yeah, no, not seeing it happen. Regulators have been clamping down on minors on social media for a while now (because of all the child abuse it enables and the overall poor effort by big social media companies to moderate vis-a-vis using bad shit to improve their bottom line) and miiverse was infamously sloppy + poorly secured in terms of moderation. Nintendo would see themselves on the receiving end of way too much bullshit if they were to do it.

It's easier for them to not bother.
 
Nintendo could make it work with predefined bits of text. So you are not allowed to type your own letters anymore. That will most certainly stimulate people their creativity to keep making drawings of dicks in a novel way.
 
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tender said:
They should absolutely do something

Switch lacked a certain soul by not having a good proprietary OS gimmick
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It was a lack of those adorable little birdies. Same thing got X. Birdies gone get ya

I despise going back to the 3DS to play stuff on that tiny screen with tiny buttons but it had soul for sure. Character development even
 
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With the rising sea levels due to polar ice caps melting, there will be that much more opportunity to post about water…so would be massively successful.
 
In my opinion I think they are pretty happy having just the social community features in splatoon 3.
 
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They could make it work... if they wanted to throw wheelbarrows of cash into a furnace to make it work.

It was a neat idea but nothing more than that. It keeps people talking in a bubble and has next to no opportunity to lead to sales or revenue of any kind.
 
dyle said:
It keeps people talking in a bubble and has next to no opportunity to lead to sales or revenue of any kind.
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I dunno, it's pretty useful to have something more than rudimentary third party apps to communicate with my buddies on PS5/Xbox. Bubble or no, a dedicated online ecosystem doesn't automatically equate to a closed ecosystem. Hell, I'd be slightly happy with a dedicated messaging system at the OS level. Anything, really. Twitter/X also being the current implementation just negates a lot of the argument when talking about friendly communities or even online bubbles. But I get that's something that's changed since 2017.

The cost vs value is something I can't speak for ofc
 
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Of course, I would welcome it if they can handle it.
Really think it added value especially for the Wii U.
 
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dyle said:
They could make it work... if they wanted to throw wheelbarrows of cash into a furnace to make it work.

It was a neat idea but nothing more than that. It keeps people talking in a bubble and has next to no opportunity to lead to sales or revenue of any kind.
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They already have a closed off ecosystem, so they've already got a bubble. But these days, almost every kind of GAAS is basically a bubble, Miiverse was just a bubble for a whole console rather than a game.
 
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it was really cool posting switch screenshots online from the switch itself before twitter got all stinky and weird

miiverse is requisite for the next system imo
 
I tried to fill the Miiverse-shaped hole with Twitter and we all know how that turned out. I would be delighted to see it come back.
 
Regardless, the barrier to re-entry is less the tech/server side and more the moderation side, which was garbage on Miiverse to begin with. I just remember Water Guy and a bunch of communities for smaller games being overrun with trolls and idiot edgelord thirteen-year-olds.
 
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Miiverse is an impossible thing to truly recreate.
It was beautiful because it was a bunch of kids on a failed console and presumably didn't have any other social media. It technically supported every game, but first party games pushed it hard and led to some silly shit being posted by a bunch of 14 year olds (or younger) who probably didn't have wider internet access. It was simultaneously pure, a bunch of trolls and occasionally the most incredible art you've ever seen done on a WiiU gamepad. Or occasionally just porn. It was social media boiled down to the bare essentials.

I'm glad that Splatoon keeps the spirit somewhat alive, but the internet has felt like it's matured a lot in the past decade, and I don't think the specific energy will ever be the same. Nintendo has gotten a lot more limiting about stuff like this, and I don't think they'll let it be as widely supported and seen like this. We'll never get something like the Miiverse stage in Smash again where you would 100% of the time just run into porn if you played as Zero Suit Samus.

Plus I think Nintendo realized that sharing screenshots to an actual social media site is much better for advertising.
 
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shoptroll said:
The big problem with Miiverse isn’t the platform or the tech. It’s the fact it needs to be effectively moderated and comply with child safety laws across multiple nations. Thats not something you can do with AI or just throwing tech at the problem, you need actual people to do the work. And a lot of people at that.

Nintendo doesn’t have the resources to handle that, especially at the scale needed for something like another breakout success akin to Wii, DS, or Switch.
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This right here☝️. Tons of weirdos on these "kid-friendly" social media platforms. It's better to hack the whole thing altogether.
 
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Bulborb said:
100% I miss Miiverse so bad! infact this is the main reason I went searching for Nintendo Forums and stumbled across famiboards and joined here!
I had so much fun with Miiverse
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I agree.
I wish that I could give this comment a thumbs up 1 trillion times. I was just thinking about Miiverse last night, it was a wonderful social network.
 
I never used miiverse much so don't really have any memories of it, but I'd love if they could bring the miis back into focus in general for the next console. Maybe make them more customizable by letting us dress them up like in miitomo?
 
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People will draw dicks and post worse stuff, if they can. This will never come back.
 
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If you ever played the Smash Bros Miiverse stage at launch, you'll know exactly why Miiverse will never come back especially if it was on a platform significantly more popular than Wii U lol.
 
Gotta love the chaotic reception this service got. One the one hand it was a cesspit, on the other it was magical.
 
There's a part of me that thinks Nintendo could do it, if they were ever so inclined to basically make their own take on a fediverse instance that could feed into their console ecosystem.

Of course, again, unless they are willing to invest in it for the long haul, they're better off with what they have now, and just need to give more options to share your funny pics/clips as more platforms emerge.
 
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I did enjoy Miiverse during it's hayday. It was a fun experiment but it didn't make sense to keep it for the long term. Not only because of moderation, but because it being a closed space, it was all "engagement" that didn't help spread the word: which is why it was replaced with integrating the likes of Twitter. They want you to still post about your Nintendo games/consoles, but in a place where other people (that don't already own their products) can see it.
 
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The chances of Miiverse or anything like it happening are basically zero for reasons already stated, but a part of me wants to see it return in all its chaotic glory just to feel alive again. I think about the guy who'd rate the water graphics often. I followed a Tumblr account that posted bad Miiverse posts back in the day. My only regret is I don't think I ever posted to Miiverse. A chance I will never have again.

To be a little more serious, it would be nice to have an easier way to share clips and screenshots that isn't tied to an absolute trashfire of a platform (Twitter) or an absolute trashfire of a platform that I don't even use (Facebook). I know there's other ways to share screenshots/clips, but the social media angle is less of a hassle for me personally. But I still don't think they'd do it, because a closed platform isn't going to catch the attention of potential customers.
 
I don't think the original Miiverse was supposed to be the thing that caught attention of customers. Nintendo was still operating under the Wii era mindset when developing Miiverse. And had Wii U even got a bit of the Wii's numbers, Miiverse would have been a very very bustling place.
 
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I think they can totally do it without the hassle of moderating drawn p*rn or foul language.
Just pre-made messages, game screenshots (restricting post access on a per-game basis according to the ESRB rating) and stickers that wouldn't be feasible as tools to drawn offensive stuff (they could limit the number of stickers, rotation, position and whatnot).
 
kasparov77 said:
I think they can totally do it without the hassle of moderating drawn p*rn or foul language.
Just pre-made messages, game screenshots (restricting post access on a per-game basis according to the ESRB rating) and stickers that wouldn't be feasible as tools to drawn offensive stuff (they could limit the number of stickers, rotation, position and whatnot).
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Then nobody would use it
 
I just don't see Miiverse happening anytime soon, mostly because of moderation.
But still i don't see Miiverse being replicated, since it was a social media app made for weirdos and what made it fun, was that you were one of 13 million weirdos who bought a Wii U instead of a PS4.

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pikmin-3-miiverse-was-wild-v0-lpd9e8u4yt2b1.jpg
 
Mer.Saloon said:
Just a thought. I always thought Miiverse on Wii U was a pretty rad system, just hamstrung by how small the Wii U's audience was, and how much it tanked the performance of the thing.

People talked about how people had Twitter, and FB back then so the messageboard exclusive to the console was a doomed concept, but if Switch had Miiverse, the audience wouldn't be so small and so insular (I mean, no more insular than any other particular service.)

This is going with the assumption that Nintendo would learn lessons from the original Miiverse to improve it.
Click to expand...
I loved Miiverse, and thought it had amazing potential. I still believe in the idea. The point isn’t that Facebook and Twelon Musty’s Dodo App exist, it was its own thing, designed to create a sense of empathy for the player. I would’ve integrated Miitomo into the Miiverse concept, to have more reasons for people to engage with it, and express their (gaming) personalities through their Miis. I realise that a higher performance system would be required, and I’m confident that a successor will deliver on that, but for sure, I would welcome a new and improved Miiverse. 💕✨
 
Can Nintendo manage to NOT to make it work? I feel like there's no way they're gonna renew the license for "X" integration for their next system, much less continue it for Switch much longer, the reputation of the platform has been so stained and they keep upping the price to like a million dollars? When even Sony and Microsoft are backing out of direct twitter sharing it's a shock Nintendo still has it at all.

I don't expect a return of something so robust as Miiverse, but we'll probably get something more like PlayStation's activity feed. Friends and maybe an extended network of players' shared screens and clips showing up right on the system menu, probably as part of a more fleshed out version of the "News" tab. Splatoon's whole art posting feature especially needs a more stable back end to function properly.
 
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What I really thinking is never.
I believe Nintendo has realized their strength lies in game console, nothing more & nothing less.
Other stuffs could be done or achieve by apps on smart phone.
Before Switch released, people speculated it's loaded loads of tablet functions, which turned me off instantly, afraid of it doing nothing well & inevitable failure.
I'm glad the Switch is what it had been now.

Miiverse? Why bother. Just go with X or Facebook even Tik Tok. Thanks.

Imagine...
In the universe where Switch failed miserably, I could see the dock faceplate ripped away so the Switch screen could be seen at anytime, serving as a tablet & HomeKit control center & more.
Please don't do that under any circumstances.
 
ethanswift said:
What I really thinking is never.
I believe Nintendo has realized their strength lies in game console, nothing more & nothing less.
Other stuffs could be done or achieve by apps on smart phone.
Before Switch released, people speculated it's loaded loads of tablet functions, which turned me off instantly, afraid of it doing nothing well & inevitable failure.
I'm glad the Switch is what it had been now.

Miiverse? Why bother. Just go with X or Facebook even Tik Tok. Thanks.

Imagine...
In the universe where Switch failed miserably, I could see the dock faceplate ripped away so the Switch screen could be seen at anytime, serving as a tablet & HomeKit control center & more.
Please don't do that under any circumstances.
Click to expand...

Miiverse? Why bother. Just go with X or Facebook even Tik Tok. Thanks.

Miiverse was a dedicated social media for nintendo fans. When I post my Pikmin screenshots to facebook or x no one gives a shit because there talking about like being in the hospital or there spouse cheating on them or other random irl stuff thats not fun.
 
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Angel Whispers said:
I loved Miiverse, and thought it had amazing potential. I still believe in the idea. The point isn’t that Facebook and Twelon Musty’s Dodo App exist, it was its own thing, designed to create a sense of empathy for the player. I would’ve integrated Miitomo into the Miiverse concept, to have more reasons for people to engage with it, and express their (gaming) personalities through their Miis. I realise that a higher performance system would be required, and I’m confident that a successor will deliver on that, but for sure, I would welcome a new and improved Miiverse. 💕✨
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I could not agree more.
 
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