Miiverse, shared eShop balances and NNID coming to Nintendo 3DS next month

During last night’s Nintendo Direct the company revealed a huge system update for the Nintendo 3DS will be released before the year is up.

The update will including Miiverse for the Nintendo 3DS, shared eShop balances between the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS and the ability to link your already existing Nintendo Network ID on the Wii U for the 3DS. This will mean any credit you add to either your 3DS or Wii U will be usable on both, but you’ll have to make sure you have the same NNID on both systems.

Purchases and downloads will not sync to your account nor be a ‘cross-buy’ system, we’re not quite there yet. Having the Nintendo Network ID on both systems is a good step forward toward that. Free apps and demos will require a Nintendo Network ID download, but you will not have to link a NNID to continue to buy games if you don’t want to.

Miiverse on the Nintendo 3DS will function much like on the Wii U, you’ll be able to post about games and post screenshots from games. Since there are so many Nintendo 3DS games, not every title will have a community at launch but more will be added as time goes on.

Nintendo says that this update won’t be the end of the improvements to the Nintendo Network ID.

Check the video out below for the full explanation from Shibata.