In one of its more unexpected moves, Nintendo has announced that Super Mario Maker, the Wii U’s runaway hit of the Summer, is getting a web-based portal for course searching.
The online portal, due to go live in December will let players search any of the 3.3 million courses (as of today’s writing; likely many more by the time the portal becomes active) by any number of filters, including fully automatic courses, Rube Goldberg machine-style courses, and those which are designed to be completed in a fraction of the usual time.
Nintendo’s Bill Trinen said in the video that the entire point of the tool is to help gamers “find the right courses faster.” Players can flag courses they’re interested in and play them from a menu in the game itself, presumably by logging into the same Nintendo Network ID.
It was also said that the tool will also be accessible by mobile device so that gamers can presumably find a course on their smartphone or tablet while on the couch, set it to connect to their Nintendo Network ID, and play it on their Wii U moments later.
The web portal is scheduled to go live in December, though no specific date was announced. While we wait in the wings, check out our review of Super Mario Maker.