Though Nintendo is likely enjoying the bump in system and game sales that the holidays bring, it’s not without its negative consequences. And for the Japanese gaming giant, the brunt of the repercussions are being suffered on their eShop digital gaming store service, for both the 3DS and the Wii U.
Besides the influx of new customers who received the systems as gifts and attempted to log on and build up a collection of titles, there’s another big culprit that Nintendo has pinpointed in causing problems for their servers, and that’s the downloadable add-on app for Pokemon X & Y, titled Pokemon Bank. Made for the purpose of allowing additional storage space for captured Pokemon, Nintendo apparently underestimated the demand that the series still brings as far as server capacity goes, as the recent Japanese launch for Pokemon Bank brought with it massive traffic, resulting in the app being pulled from the eShop for the time being, and the original December 27 launch for the app in North America and Europe to be postponed to a currently unconfirmed later date.
Nintendo’s initial solution was to put the 3DS eShop offline in North America and Europe yesterday from 4 P.M. to 4 A.M. Eastern. This plan is also being repeated today in North America, with Europe’s service being shut off from 10 P.M. to 10 A.M. CET. Joystiq is also reporting issues logging into the Wii U eShop, despite Nintendo’s official network status page reporting no problems at the moment.
It’s a shame that many gamers who just received a fresh new 3DS and/or Wii U aren’t getting to experience some of the better digital-exclusive titles right away, but hopefully Nintendo will use this eShop downtime to investigate methods to prevent similar incidents in the future. I’m no expert when it comes to server maintenance, but I’d say it might be a good idea for the company to invest in some upgrades and/or expansions for improved service, but only time will tell as far as what they choose to do.
We will keep you updated on more Nintendo news as it drops. In the meantime, let us know your thoughts on the situation in the comments section below.
