Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has confirmed that the company are currently preparing a new Nintendo Direct broadcast to divulge details on Miiverse - the overarching online set-up of the Wii U system.

Iwata dropped the tease in his quarterly investor Q&A, which was recently made available in English.

"Miiverse" is a new network service which connects those who play games, and we plan to start it at the same time as the launch of the Wii U system. As it would take me a long time to elaborate on "Miiverse" here, we are currently preparing a Nintendo Direct video to explain about it in detail before the launch of Wii U."

While details are few and few between, Miiverse is believed to be a self-contained social network of sorts for Wii U players (though it will eventually be made accessible from 3DS, PCs and smartphones).

Iwata also contrasted the approach with past Nintendo systems, where players had to exchange friend codes to connect with each other online. With Wii U, players will be able to find like-minded gamers via Miiverse and expand their friend relationships in this way.

Here is Iwata giving the first introduction of the Miiverse concept shortly before E3 in June.