So we know the Wii U will feature a global achievement system called "accomplishments" when it launches in scant days. Oh, wait, we don't know that at all. This is one of the remaining Wii U mysteries—maybe there is a system there, or maybe there isn't. There have been hints, but there have also been plenty of things to suggest that maybe there is no such thing whatsoever, or that if there is, it's game-specific and not shared.
There is one thing we do know, though. And that thing might be able to supplant a great deal of what people love about an achievement system, if not actually improve upon it.
Do you know that you can share screenshots on Miiverse? Brandon talked about it a couple days ago, and it's been sorta-common knowledge for a while before that. A simple tap of the Home button to suspend your game, and whatever was on the TV and your controller at that moment are cached as images until you resume playing. Load up Miiverse and they're right there, begging—pleading—to be shared.
Nintendo's publicized examples of this functionality are always based around asking for help. "I am too dumb to live, look at this picture and help me oh god." But why stop there! Anything you post on Miiverse will show up in the news feeds of your Wu followers, making it a perfect avenue for full-on bragtimes. Just earned an SS on some super-hard nonsense? Screenshot that sucka and throw it up on the 'verse. Maybe even write yourself some words of praise, or draw a little man engaged in a spirited bout of auto-erotic asphyxiation.
Games will always have "things to do." Sometimes they are in nice neat lists, and sometimes they're on a result screen after a tough fight. Maybe the real accomplishment is in a high-score table. Maybe it's in working your way to some place in the game you're not supposed to go! Whether or not Nintendo supports a global shared achievement system won't stop developers from packing their games with goals and challenges—I've actually played a few PS3 games lately where the global trophy list was mirrored in-game with a custom interface and imagery. So the only question is, "how do I share these with my friends?"
Miiverse seems like a great outlet for this. By having to share each accomplishment manually, you get the opportunity to pair it with some words or scribblings, and it puts it much more in your friends' faces than if they had to go seek it out manually in some comparison suite. Better yet, you only share what you're actually proud of. No one cares about the twenty cheevs you got just for "playing the game" that everyone gets automatically. But that one you really had to work hard for? Maybe one that wouldn't have even been in an actual accomplishment list? Screenshot it hard, and blast it in their faces. "AW YEAH!!"
This may all be moot, since we're still in pre-launch mystery land. Maybe global accomplishments are indeed supported, and you can view your friends' lists by going into the activity log. It'd be pretty fab if the activity logs were shared and had that kind of data in 'em, let me tell you. But even then, this Miiverse sharing still sounds like a neat option to me, layered on top. A fully-integrated social networking service is a step well beyond the kind of highly-specialized sharing we've seen on current-generation consoles. Let's all share our greatest victories, and be sure to pair them with hand-drawn filth that will get us immediately ejected from our friends' feeds, and banned from the network.