Nintendo’s online store isn’t working for many gamers at the moment — not on Wii U or 3DS — making it essentially impossible to use many of the systems’ core online services. It looks like these issues are affecting us in ‘Straya, too. And it’s why a lot of Nintendo gamers are pulling their hair out now. Updated with Nintendo Australia response…
UPDATE: Nintendo Australia has responded and confirmed that the store is down for both WiiU and 3DS, due to high volumes of traffic in the newly introduced Pokemon Bank. They have a news post up, and are working on the matter. More to follow.
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company International have postponed the launch of Pokémon Bank and Poké Transporter – two software applications that were originally scheduled to launch for Nintendo 3DS on Dec. 27 – due to a large volume of traffic to the Nintendo Network service. Due to the high traffic, players are having trouble setting up Nintendo Network IDs and downloading content in the Nintendo eShop on both Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. We truly regret the inconvenience, and wish to reassure everyone that providing a solution is our top priority. We apologize for the delay and thank you for your continued patience.
In-game online functionality seems to be working for us, but trying to access the store brings up an error message. Which is a pain not only because lots of people would have just been given a shiny new WiiU/3DS, but also because there’s supposed to be a rather large sales on the 3DS store at the moment. The sale is now set to resume when the store is back up.
Here’s the error message they’re getting over in the US:
And here’s ours, with different error codes – one of them saying it’s maintenance time:
The US Nintendo Twitter account was in apology mode yesterday:
Hi, everyone. We’re aware that some of you are encountering issues with eShop and creating NNIDs. Our team is working hard to resolve them…
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 25, 2013
…And we are truly sorry for any inconvenience. Please follow us for more updates. Thank you for your patience!
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 25, 2013
You can check the status of Nintendo’s North American online services here, but Australia doesn’t have an equivalent.
The inability to create Nintendo Network IDs blocks any new Nintendo Wii U or 3DS owner from being able to make purchases on the Nintendo eShop or even begin using a profile that is intended to serve as a unified identity — similar to an Apple iTunes ID or a PlayStation or Xbox account — that tethers all of a Nintendo gamer’s online transactions and money balance to themselves. Until just a few weeks ago, Nintendo didn’t use the NNIDs for this and did not use an account-based system to preserve its customers’ purchases. The company instead tethered purchases only to a specific piece of hardware and only allowing a transfer of purchases from one piece of hardware to another.
To apparently lighten server load, Nintendo of Japan, is removing the newly-released Pokémon Bank application from its 3DS eShop, according to a post on the company’s official site (and spotted on the NeoGAF message board).
Nintendo isn’t the only major gaming company to have online problems this Christmas. The PlayStation Network was malfunctioning on Christmas Eve:
https://twitter.com/AskPlayStation/statuses/415591981515948033
It’s up at the time of this writing.
Valve’s Steam store went down yesterday around the time that Left 4 Dead 2 became completely free, but has since been brought back up.
We’ve reached out to Nintendo Australia for details, but being the holidays, it might be a while. Are you having similar experiences? Is the store working for anyone? I’ll update this story should they supply any insight.
We apologize for the continued interruption of Nintendo eShop service and are working to resolve the situation. Thanks for your patience.
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 26, 2013
Comments
18 responses to “Nintendo Online Services Broken Now, Continuing Christmas Malfunctions”
I remember years ago when you couldn’t receive text messages on Christmas sue to the network load.
Still happens at New Years lol
Should only happen if your local tower is over crowded.
Central Sydney on New Years… Might as well throw your phone in the harbour.
Fair enough
Just purchased a Wii U yesterday during the Boxing Day sales. Was able to create a Network ID last night after a few tries but still haven’t been able to access the e-store. Absolutely loving this thing though, I was thinking of getting a tablet for around the house but this basically negates any need for one for the price of a mid-ranged tablet. Hopefully these server issues are a good sign for the future of this console.
(Posted from my Wii U)
I’m guessing it’s the flood of new 3DS/2DS sales, but hopefully there’s a solid chunk of Wii U sales in there. It’d be a shame if all it’s potential went to waste.
Yeah I got one for Xmas, more excited with it than my PS4 at the moment. The gamepad is great for playing games in bed too. Shove off my 3ds lol.
The JB near me sold out of Wii U’s at xmas so there is hope.
Heh. As stupid as it sounds I find it’s really good when playing on the couch. It’s not that facing the TV is hard or anything but I can get really comfortable playing on the game pad. It’s sort of hard to describe to someone who doesn’t own one without sounding super lazy but it’s brilliant.
And then you control the TV using the pad like a Xbone without crappy voice commands so you don’t even need to reach for the remote.
Nintendo just need to show lots of people how cool all this stuff is.
Seems like the store is back up. Have been able to log in twice successfully now.
I logged onto eshop numerous times today, and made a purchase just prior to this online article being published. The download was running slightly slower than usual (approx. 20 minutes). I have had my WiiU since launch date but I am not sure if this is a reason behind me having access to eshop.
I’ve been able to get on but not download.
Finally! Nintendo are copying Sony for once instead of Sony copying them.
*spelling mistake
I think they’re moving into the modern age and are copying Steam 😉
Yeah maybe. But my comment makes sense now that i edited it. it was nonsense before =/
Australian eShop currently giving the error message “We sincerely apologise, but in an effort to manage the high traffic, and ultimately improve the consumer experience, we are temporarily taking the Nintendo eShop services offline in your region.”
Looks like they’re prioritising other regional traffic. No word on when we’ll get access back.
That annoys me mostly as I can’t get Pokemons patch as it is tied to the store. Surely the patches are once off things that they could let us Aussies get atleast. Ohwell. I’ll just live with it.