Been a while since I last added any more thoughts here, and there'll be more soon - been jotting down some additional ideas in recent months.
Anyway, the point of bumping this again is to note that Wii no Ma is
back in the news again. Specifically, the service is being discontinued as of the end of April. Makes sense, given that the Wii is winding down, with the Wii U only months off, and the 3DS has taken off in a huge way globally. Makes one wonder what kind of successor services we may see planned in the future on these new platforms now.
Nintendo Video's a global hit, Japan has additional streaming services, and the west has Netflix and Hulu Plus. Given that we know Hulu Plus will be coming to the 3DS soon too, and both Netflix and Hulu Plus are easy locks for the Wii U - the former's already been officially confirmed, as I recall - one has to wonder if we'll see perhaps something smaller like Nintendo Video on the Wii U, or if they'll go all out with the virtual environment for a new Wii no Ma on the Wii U in Japan. It does seem reasonable to say it makes sense to go for simpler, moer straight to the point menu-based video streaming with some nice chilled-out music like Nintendo Video, though, and to separate the virtual world/life elements and put those into something more social and better suited to that sort of thing in the first place. Whether this could be taken as a sign of the potential for something like Miitropolis, though, is hard to say. They could be pouring this sort of thinking further into Tomodachi Collection 3DS, which may at least have a shot at coming west where the original did not.
That said, they've been very coy about revealing planned features and services for the upcoming Nintendo Network, which has partially launched in Japan as of last Thursday. Some sorts of additional online Mii social features - even if not as conceptually ambitious as Wii no Ma - seem like a natural idea, especially seeing as they've even begun creating Mii mascot characters (As in the case of Nikki) to further bring life to their little world within our Nintendo systems and features. There's a new Nintendo Direct online conference coming up tomorrow, though, and the first global one since last fall, several months ago. While I don't expect we'll hear much - if anything - about the Wii U just yet (And the GDC
is coming up at the beginning of March, so if they tease anything Wii U soon, it may be tehre.), I suspect this will be the event at which they unveil the Nintendo Network on a more global level and perhaps set a timeframe in which we should expect the arrival of the next major 3DS firmware update to connect with our Nintendo Network accounts, add new features, and so on, given that it's been nearly 3 months since last update, and that one was pretty massive. Of course, I also expect we'll see more 3DS - and potentially 3DS Download - titles revealed there. And very possibly some unexpected surprises. I'm not expecting any major answers on questions we might have about on online virtual Mii world just yet, but with the launch of the Nintendo Network looming near and Iwata having referred to many and various services being planned for this leap forward much further into the online arena, things are only going to get more interesting.