As kids and adults flocked to the Nintendo eShop, eager to spend the gift cards they found in their socks, that excitement was quickly dampened by an eShop error screen. The annual holiday surge has brought down the Nintendo Switch eShop for some once again, according to a report by Kotaku. The service was brought back around 4:30 am EDT on December 26, 24 hours later.
We are aware that players are experiencing errors accessing Nintendo eShop and are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding and check our Network Status page for the latest updates.https: //t.co/KnM0g7z7jn
– Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 25, 2021
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During the outage, Nintendo tweeted, noting that the company is “working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.” It also included a link to Nintendo’s online service status page, where it displays updates on any current outages.
As noted on the status page, issues started to surface around 4:00 am ET on Christmas morning and weren’t resolved until 24 hours later. The company did not provide any additional information about the downtime, vaguely stating: “We are currently experiencing difficulties with our network services. Please try again later. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.” It later updated that statement to recognize that the store was back online.
In a timeline of the interrupts shown in Downdetector, it appears that the problems peaked around 9:00 ET on Christmas morning, but then subsided. I was able to successfully open the Nintendo Switch eShop as well as download some updates around 4:30 PM ET that night, a sign that things were starting to get online again.
The interruption did not affect any other online activity, such as online gaming. This only prevented gamers from purchasing and downloading any content from the eShop – which was probably a drag for those who wanted to fill their new Switch with digital games.
Nintendo eShop went down last year over Christmas, and the company didn’t fully restore service until the next day. Nintendo has even warned gamers that the eShop may be overloaded this holiday weekend and advised them to create a Nintendo account before the holidays, which isn’t really ideal if you want to gift someone with Switch on Christmas Day.
The Verge contacted Nintendo with a request for comment, but did not get an immediate response.
Update December 26, 2021 at 8:20 am EDT: Updated to recognize that the Nintendo Switch eShop is back online at 4:30 am EDT on December 26th.
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