Miiverse

Miiverse was originally conceived by Junya Kondo, then-president of Hatena, and produced by Kiyoshi Mizuki. Mizuki had been discussing the Wii U's network service during his time working on the Japanese-exclusive Wii no Ma, and had wondered about the idea of incorporating Miis into the service. After talking with several developers and employees at Nintendo, such as Kouichi Kawamoto, others gradually started to pick up on the idea, including Katsuya Eguchi and Hisashi Nogami. Nogami was previously the director of Animal Crossing who coordinated the development of the Wii U Home Menu, while Eguchi served as an advisor; both wanted to give Miiverse a "live" feeling that was previously impossible, and designed the platform around that concept.

During development of the service, Hatena used a cardboard mockup of the Wii U Gamepad and a sheet of paper to simulate the experience of browsing. Iwata later described the platform as an "empathy network", stating his belief that bad behavior was less likely to occur if players were brought together using the service, as well as the service's potential in becoming a "Cloud Game Diary" where people could check on game updates from friends.

Retrospectives of Miiverse generally highlight the platform's less than serious nature with respect to its posts and how the app was used by owners of the 3DS and/or Wii U. The content on Miiverse would often be the focal point of social media posts and YouTube series making fun of it, partly contributing to nostalgia for the platform post-shutdown. ". Publications during and after Miiverse's lifespan have also noted the platform's quirky and creative approach to social networking that made it stand out when compared to other platforms.

In "Transgression in Games and Play", authors Torill Elvira Mortensen and Victor Navarro-Remesal studied different types of transgressions in Nintendo's social services, noting how certain messages and communities in Miiverse often pushed its limits and challenged the space's intention for gaming discussions. One example they noted, which was also mentioned by Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku in 2015, was a trend called "Miiverse After Dark", where users would spam the platform with Rule 34 content when moderation was less active.