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3DS Miiverse Impressions

Last night, Nintendo released the 7.0.0-13U update for the Nintendo 3DS. This was the big update Nintendo announced last month to link the Nintendo Network accounts for Wii U and 3DS, as well as add Miiverse to the handheld. Now all your eShop funds have been merged and add your Wii U Nintendo Network ID to your 3DS, or create one if you don’t have one. I updated it and took it for a spin.
Miiverse is what you expect, just on a smaller screen; and all the features of the service are available on the 3DS. You can launch Miiverse even if you’re not connected to the Internet and use it in offline mode, and posts you write will be saved until you go online when you can unload them. Unlike other online features on the 3DS like Swapnote, these posts are monitored by Nintendo consistently, so no bad stuff.
hardware-miiverse
Right now only certain first-party titles support it with their own communities, and each of them require their own update for it to work: Pokémon X/Y, Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Mario Party: Island Tour, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, and New Super Mario Bros. 2. Once updated, Miiverse can be launched while playing these games and you can upload screenshots and posts on those games. I bet future games will use more features, kinda like how Super Mario 3D World have stamps for posting. Better yet, you can also access the entire Wii U Miiverse as well with all the software’s communities to your fingertips, and vice-versa if you’re a Wii U owner.
On the eShop, all your credit card info will be deleted in place of those saved on your Wii U (or re-save them for your now-Nintendo Network ID). It will also link all your account activity to your NNID and make you log in before accessing the eShop. What this means to those whose system broke/got lost is still unsure, since it makes all your purchases tracked, and I’m not going to test that out. Though as of this writing, I cannot access the eShop at this time, listing an internal issue error code.
The update also did a few tiny things here and there, like enable the 3DS’ camera via the main menu by hitting both the L and R buttons. Before it was either one, which made some accidental booting of the camera.
The update did not do a few things I wish it did, like eliminate the friend codes for your friend list (and just use the Nintendo Network ID). Because of that, the only way to add someone to your Nintendo Network friends list on the device is through Miiverse, meaning that there are two friend lists on the system. Hopefully that’ll be fixed once the adoption rate of the update increases, which won’t be until after Christmas.
This was a good time to enable this, right before Christmas when many new 3DS owners will be added to the community. Now all those people need to do is update and they can set it up. So far, so good on the update (except for the whole not enabling eShop), and it is a first step into getting a true unified Nintendo Network.

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