After a few days of Nintendo limiting access across different regions, Nintendo Network is now fully operational. Nintendo has told fans in America and Europe to wait on upcoming news for Pokemon Bank and Poke Transporter.
The issues began on Christmas Day itself, with several new Nintendo console owners complaining of trouble making new NNID accounts, but some also had problems accessing the eShop and using Miiverse. Due to these problems, Nintendo pulled Pokemon Bank and Poke Transporter in Japan and announced delays in releasing Bank in other regions. Later, Nintendo pointed to the high number of fans making new NNID accounts, as well as those using Pokebank, as reasons for the downtime.
Come December 28 and 29, Nintendo scheduled region based outages to provide partial usability. US and Europe lost access to their services on those days between 4 PM – 4 AM EST, while Japan was able to access it within that time. As of today, all issues have been completely resolved.
It’s worth noting the revelation that Nintendo literally had one network (i.e, one server) for all their consoles. Wii, DSi, Wii U, and 3DS networks were all affected at the onset, although they were able to separate 3DS’ issues later. Also worth considering is that Nintendo made no mention of increasing servers, or other things they have been doing in the backend. I would complain more about lack of disclosure, except they were able to get these issues taken care of relatively quickly.
For now, Nintendo is being proactive regarding the pending Pokemon Bank launch. If you want to use it, you should register your NNID to your 3DS now, and access the eShop at least once, so that it goes more smoothly when it finally releases. That juicy Celebi is still up for grabs, so I doubt hardcore Pokemon fans have been shooed away from trying it.
