Nintendo has revealed, via their American and European Twitter accounts, the status of Pokemon Bank in Asia and other regions.
First, Nintendo of America revealed that Pokemon Bank has launched in certain Asian countries, pending a required system update. This possibly refers to Korea as well as Japan.
Pokémon Bank has launched in certain Asian countries. (1/2)
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) January 22, 2014
Please stay tuned to our social channels for updates on availability in other regions, including North America. (2/2)
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) January 22, 2014
Several hours later, Nintendo of Europe corroborated this information. They also explained that they are closely monitoring player’s experiences for the next few days in preparation for a pending European release.
Hi Pokémon fans, sorry it's taken until now before we could give you an update on Pokémon Bank (1/4)
— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) January 22, 2014
Pokémon Bank & Poké Transporter services have now resumed operation in various Asian territories incl. Japan (2/4)
— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) January 22, 2014
We'll be closely monitoring players' experiences as we prepare for the European release (3/4)
— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) January 22, 2014
Once again we want to apologise for the delay, and thank you for your patience and your interest (4/4)
— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) January 22, 2014
As we all know by now, Pokemon Bank, among other things, was pointed to as the culprit for the sudden downtime in Nintendo Network services across all regions over the last holiday season. Pokemon Bank’s impact in this case was so severe that they pulled out the service in Japan, the only region that even had the service, as it sought to regain normalcy in their console servers.
Now, it seems Nintendo’s learned its lesson, as they are easing Pokemon Bank back into general use slowly, and will share it to other regions when they are capable. I do think these next few weeks will see a predictable drop in use since the holidays just ended, so they have some leeway to relaunch but they really need to have more servers at the ready.
But hey, people all but dismissed A Realm Reborn as a total bust when Square Enix proceeded to get their act together. Nintendo’s challenge isn’t even half as huge, considering they have exclusive control of their platform and they don’t have as twisted a history as Final Fantasy’s online to contend with. While I don’t agree with predictions that Bank will be ready worldwide by next week, I doubt it’ll reach the end of financial year.
