When Nintendo unveiled the Wii U a few years ago, along with the interesting GamePad, it also debuted a social network called Miiverse. It served as a virtual lounge for the Mii avatars that gamers created, as well as a platform to grow the community of Wii U users. While a valiant effort, the Japanese company is finally pulling the plug on this failed social network. 

Nintendo plans to bring the Miiverse to an end on 8 November, and also discontinue support for the Wii U chat app and TVii. The company will, however make Miiverse available in online form, primarily for users to download the hand drawn posts that they shared on the console platform, which was one of the major features touted by the social network. 

Whether or not Nintendo will bring a similar offering to the new Switch console remains to be seen, especially as the hybrid gaming device has no dedicated social network of its own. Perhaps though, it points to the Japanese company moving away from cute little Mii avatars altogether, and embracing a next-gen approach to console gaming. 

For us, however, the Miiiverse was just one element that added to the charm of gaming on a Nintendo console, so hopefully that it not all lost.