How the Shutdown of Miiverse Puts Nintendo Behind Microsoft and Sony

1RBC: Nintendo's reputation, by and large, precedes it. Nintendo is the company that made console gaming cool again in the United States in the wake of the industry crash that turned Atari upside down- Nintendo is the company that brought gaming to the masses through the Wii, then somehow squandered their incredible mainstream cultural impact. It doesn't matter what game console you buy- your parents are going to call it the Nintendo- that's the impact that they've had on the industry.

Within the gaming community, Nintendo is beloved, but often pitied because as a company, it seems doomed to repeat embarrassing mistakes. Case in point: the impending shutdown of the Miiverse service. Introduced in 2012 alongside the Wii U, Miiverse is Nintendo's social network made of communities for individual games. Want to talk about Splatoon and share cool screenshots and fan art? You can do so on Miiverse. It seems bizarre that Nintendo is shutting down an active social network that they have total control over, especially when one of the criticisms against their latest console, the Switch, is that its online functionality is severely lacking. It doesn't have the charm- or much of the functionality- of the Wii U.