74% of Nintendo Wii U, 80% of 3DS Owners Have Gone Online

During Nintendo's investors briefing this week, the company expressed a strong online connection ratio for both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.

It seems players have almost fully embraced the online space in this generation of hardware, with Nintendo particularly proud of the Nintendo 3DS connection rate - over 80% of those who  purchased the console have popped onto the internet at some point, with a large increase over the last year when it sat around the 60% mark.

The Nintendo Wii U connection rate is equally high, currently coming in around 74% of adopters having connected - higher than the original Nintendo Wii, but might be attributed to the initial download to hook up the console to certain services. With the emergence of Miiverse, YouTube steaming and more online-enabled titles, this is an area Nintendo expects to grow over time - "We will continue to inform our consumers about the advantages of using the Wii U consoles online to further increase this ratio."

With the launch of Miiverse at the very start, Nintendo are thinking of expanding software developers for more interactive/web-based services using HTML5, Javascript and Unity to further enhance the online functionality for players.