Nintendo's membership service to span Wii U, 3DS, NX, PC and smart devices

Perhaps lost in the news earlier this year that Nintendo was finally going to start making smart device games, was the decision by the company to create an "integrated membership service."

During today's presentation, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata went into a bit more detail about plans for the membership service.

The concept behind the service is to establish a bridge not just between smart devices and dedicated gaming consoles (including the in-development NX), but also the PC, he said.

"While we will announce the details of this integrated membership service at a later date, I can share with you at a high level the idea is that the consumer can access multiple devices using one common ID," Iwata said. "For us to be able to bridge the gap between smart devices and dedicated game systems, we will offer advantages to consumers who use one ID across multiple devices."

We're already seeing that in action with the Club Nintendo ID, he pointed out. The new service will grant members "various services including the ones based on their past purchases and gameplay records as well as services that will be an improved version of the current loyalty program.

"With this new membership, we are planning to deploy services that will make playing Nintendo games with their game pals more fun regardless of which platform they are accessing."

What Iwata didn't discuss is whether this service will support more meaningful cross-platform interactions like tracking high scores, friends lists, communication or even gameplay between devices.