Mii-like Animal Crossing Plaza now available on Wii U

The Animal Crossing Plaza, an online area in which Animal Crossing fans can interact with each other, is now available on Wii U, Nintendo announced during a Nintendo Direct presentation today.

The plaza resembles the Wii U's Wara Wara Plaza, and is open to Animal Crossing players around the globe. It's tied into the new Animal Crossing Miiverse community on Wii U, with users being able to import images from Animal Crossing: New Leaf on Nintendo 3DS and post them on Miiverse. Players can organize the images into albums and design custom QR codes for them, which can then be used to get the screenshots into New Leaf.

The Animal Crossing Plaza app is now available as a free download on Wii U, and the service will run from now through the end of 2014. Above, you can see a screenshot of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in the plaza.

In addition, European New Leaf players will be able to gift a copy of the game to friends who buy a 3DS XL under the "Welcome a Friend" promotion. Users who register the game with Club Nintendo by Sept. 7 will receive a Recommendation Code. They can then give that code to a friend who buys and registers a 3DS XL between today and Sept. 7, and that friend can redeem the code for a free copy of New Leaf.