Jinfash
needs 2 extra inches
Quick preface: I bought the Wii U in January, and according to the Activity Log app, I played it for 7 hours during that month, then less than 30 minutes in Feb, March, and April. Come the month of May, and I bought Monster Hunter, Mario World, and Super Metroid. My logged hours went from 30 minutes to 130+ hours in less than 20 days!
So it goes without saying that this was my first opportunity to stress test some of the Wii U's online and social networking features. And one of those features happen to be Miiverse. Thanks to the constant updates and improvements, not to mention the recent OS update, I've had a taste of Nintendo's vision for this service and liked what I tasted. It's so quick and easy to jump from the game to Miiverse, compose a post (maybe attach a picture) and jump back into the game. And every few minutes check for feedback.
The population is quite healthy, at least for the games I mentioned above. So healthy that if I had a very specific question, the time it takes to get feedback is not far behind googling answers. The convenience certainly makes it even more worth it. Also, asking questions isn't my only reason to turn to Miiverse, sometimes I just feel like sharing cool moments (like I did when playing Super Metroid for the first time). And speaking of which, let's not forget how entertaining it can be to stumble on players having "y cant metroid crawl" moments, and then there's the abundance of hurt feelings overflowing from certain communities such as EA's.
Finally, I'll add that I'm very impressed with quickly it evolved. I think they've covered all the basic features right now, and gone a step above with PC and mobile integration. And if the roadmap is anything to go by, there are plans for some nice additions in the near future. All in all, I have to say that feeling connected in real time to like-minded players, even for offline games, is a powerful feature. Especially when it works as well as it does here.
So it goes without saying that this was my first opportunity to stress test some of the Wii U's online and social networking features. And one of those features happen to be Miiverse. Thanks to the constant updates and improvements, not to mention the recent OS update, I've had a taste of Nintendo's vision for this service and liked what I tasted. It's so quick and easy to jump from the game to Miiverse, compose a post (maybe attach a picture) and jump back into the game. And every few minutes check for feedback.
The population is quite healthy, at least for the games I mentioned above. So healthy that if I had a very specific question, the time it takes to get feedback is not far behind googling answers. The convenience certainly makes it even more worth it. Also, asking questions isn't my only reason to turn to Miiverse, sometimes I just feel like sharing cool moments (like I did when playing Super Metroid for the first time). And speaking of which, let's not forget how entertaining it can be to stumble on players having "y cant metroid crawl" moments, and then there's the abundance of hurt feelings overflowing from certain communities such as EA's.
Finally, I'll add that I'm very impressed with quickly it evolved. I think they've covered all the basic features right now, and gone a step above with PC and mobile integration. And if the roadmap is anything to go by, there are plans for some nice additions in the near future. All in all, I have to say that feeling connected in real time to like-minded players, even for offline games, is a powerful feature. Especially when it works as well as it does here.
(You guys have to realize that I'm the farthest thing from being a Nintendo enthusiast. So when I start typing like marc^o^ in a rosy and optimistic tone, you know it's serious)