Nintendo confirms unified accounts for 3DS and Wii U

According to Nitnendo, the company will be unifying accounts accross the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U upon launch. Nintendo World Report relays the information from a Nintendo Customer Service Representative, who explains the universal account system and the timing of the change. The info comes from an email that David Marshall sent, the representative inside Nintendo who has let slip the news.

“A unified account system will be implemented later this year with the launch of the Wii U. Eventually this same account system will be made compatible with Nintendo 3DS systems. At this time we have no additional details to offer and nothing to indicate how or if this will work outside the United States and Canada. If the system is stolen, we can transfer the account to a new system once we are provided with a valid police report,” Marshall explained in a recent e-mail from a concerned customer who’s 3DS had been stolen.

A unified account system for the Wii U and 3DS could give Nintendo gamers a lot more ways to play, if Nintendo adopts the same philosophy as Sony uses with its PlayStation family of devices and the unified PSN accounts. We’ll have to wait on more details from Nintendo about this, before speculating too much about compatibility of downloads across different devices in the Nintendo family.