Nintendo Network is more familiar to 3DS owners than you might think

Nintendo WFC is no more! This has been somewhat obvious since 3DS launched – early online enabled 3DS games were never graced with the “Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection” stamp.

Our friends over at Andriasang – and Twitter user Joshua_x – have uncovered a new stamp which adorns online-enabled 3DS game Theatrhythm Final Fantasy’s boxart, one with the “Nintendo Network” branding on it. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy also supports DLC. But what is Nintendo Network?

And here's the service's nifty logo, as seen on Theatrhythm Final Fantasy's box.

Nintendo Network is in fact nothing new to 3DS owners. Those with Mario Kart 7 – and possibly Zen Pinball 3D, the latter of which was released in November in Europe and will support 3DS DLC (thus providing more evidence to it supporting Nintendo Network) – have already been using it for over a month now.

It seems to have launched with Mario Kart 7, with evidence to suggest this popping up in earlier online-enabled 3DS titles. Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, Dead or Alive Dimensions and Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D use Capcom and Tecmo Koei’s servers from the looks of things, as Nintendo’s online service for games – which likely launched with Mario Kart 7 – wasn’t ready yet (leading some of us to suspect this is the reason why Star Fox 64 3D launched without online multiplayer).

Those games wouldn’t let you access the home screen whilst playing online, whereas both Zen Pinball 3D and Mario Kart 7 let you do so, with the added ability of Zen Pinball 3D being able to feed into your friends list to compile team scores as well as Mario Kart 7′s “join friend” functionality.

Mario Kart 7 is one of the first games to use Nintendo Network. Which means you can use it *right now*.

The biggest piece of evidence we appears when we connect online on Mario Kart 7 – check our our photo of the game above. We’d have reported on this back in December (but at the time we were still undergoing the transition back from Made2Game), yet the game tells us that we’re “Connecting To Nintendo Network”. Oddly enough, only the EU version of the game shows this message, likely because the North America version received a different localisation (Melody Motorway is Music Park and Wuhu Mountain Pass is Maka Wuhu).

But what is this? Is Nintendo Network a genuinely new, unified online service with a bunch of new functionality, incorporating enhanced 3DS features (such as Zen Pinball 3D’s smart use of obtaining scores from your friends on your global list, or Mario Kart 7′s much welcome “join friend” option) and Nintendo’s new DLC initiative? Or is it a smart rebranding of Nintendo WFC, to help us forget the online service of old, where some developers had to ditch the service entirely on Wii to offer something Nintendo WFC couldn’t (such as Monster Hunter Tri).

It’s probably a bit of both, really. Nintendo really have made the right steps forward in their approach to online with 3DS, and this would make it the best time to make things a fresh start, with a new name to boot.

With thanks to Andriasang for the Nintendo Network stamp find.

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3. AR Cards will be 3DS owners’ new best friends
4. Nintendo eShop screenshots finally go 3D on us
5. Dead Or Alive Dimensions DLC now beaming to 3DS owners