Nintendo eShop Offline And Pokemon Bank Frozen As Servers Struggle

Nintendo may not have made the same headlines as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 over the holidays, but a surge of users has seen the eShop suffer downtime for 3DS and Wii U owners since Christmas. The company has blamed an inrush of Nintendo Network ID registrations leaving owners of both its handheld and living room systems unable to access the eShop download store, and even forcing Nintendo to take its Pokemon Bank service offline in Japan.

Detailed earlier this month, Pokemon Bank is intended to offer Pokemon X and Pokemon Y gamers space to store up to 3,000 individual Pokemon creatures, as well as allow for transfers and swaps between titles. The service launched in Japan on December 25th, but Nintendo says that the eShop overload has prompted it to take it offline again.

There's no indication of when Japanese gamers will regain access to Pokemon Bank, nor indeed whether the planned December 27th across the Americas and Europe will take place on schedule.

The downtime affects 3DS, Wii U Basic, and Wii U Deluxe owners, Nintendo says, with attempts to access the eShop giving nothing but a "Please Try Again Later" warning message. According to the company, the problem stems from a Nintendo 3DS update earlier this month, which brought Miiverse support to the console.

It also integrated the 3DS' download store – and any balances associated with a gamer's account – with the Wii U's eShop, under the Nintendo Network ID (NNID) umbrella. A greater-than-expected rush of people taking advantage of that has seemingly overloaded Nintendo's servers in the process.

Nintendo says it is working to rectify the problems, but vocal gamers are still complaining about the patchy access – if they can get online at all – on Twitter. The company's service status page still has no ETA on when the issue may be resolved.