Pokémon Bank delayed, pulled from Japan, after Nintendo eShop outage
Pokémon Bank was released yesterday in Japan, though the release was far from a smooth one, with laggy connections and error messages abound. That, coupled with the increased Nintendo eShop activity for Christmas Day, brought the Nintendo eShop and its servers down, rendering them inaccessible for folks across the world.
As a result of the Nintendo eShop outage, Pokémon fans across the world who woke up Christmas morning to a new Nintendo 3DS, Pokémon X, and/or Pokémon Y will find themselves unable to apply the Version 1.2 patch required in order to connect to trade or battle over Nintendo Wi-Fi. The update is available only in the Nintendo eShop, which cannot be accessed by most people at this point, leaving these new players no option to experience the fun of online trading and battling.
If you just got Pokémon X or Y and cannot connect to Wi-Fi, please read this earlier postexplaining the update and be patient until the Nintendo eShop is restored!
Pokémon Bank itself has been pulled from the Japanese and Korean eShop. In fact, even those who were fortunate enough to download it before it was pulled will find an error message when attempting to connect online to the Pokémon Bank, leaving any Pokémon stored in Pokémon Bank in a state of limbo, unable to be accessed until the problem is resolved.
Sadly, because of these issues, Nintendo has changed the release date for Pokémon Bank to "TBD" — To Be Determined — meaning it will (most likely) NOT be available in North America, Europe, and Australia for its previously confirmed December 27th date. As of the time of this post, no further date has been announced, though it has been said that the 30-day free trial period will likely be extended to compensate for this.
Sharing my personal opinion here for a moment, I cannot help but be critical towards the decision to launch such a crucial piece of software during a time that there is already a massive influx of activity. It also terrifies me to think that Pokémon I store in "the cloud" of Pokémon Bank may be unavailable during outages like this one.
I used my Japanese 3DS to download Pokémon Bank and try it out before it was inaccessible, though I made the conscious decision to move all Pokémon transferred from my 5th Generation Pokémon games straight to my Japanese Pokémon Y version rather than leave them in the Pokémon Bank. Thank goodness I did, otherwise they would be completely inaccessible to me. But I'm sure there were players who moved some of their favorite Pokémon to Pokémon Bank and are now no longer able to access them until the problems are resolved. On top of that, so many clearly and blatantly hacked Pokémon (Pokémon modified with external devices or cheats) were allowed through the Poké Transporter, despite claims that such Pokémon would not be able to be transferred due to strong security checks.
How can Nintendo and The Pokémon Company make this right for Pokémon fans? How can they put people's minds at ease after a meltdown situation like this? It will be hard to regain people's trust, particularly if the $4.99/yr fee is intended to prevent issues like this from occurring. Perhaps offering a 60-day free trial instead of a 30-day free trial to make up for the unfortunate issues stemming from the launch would be a good remedy. What do you think would make it right?
On that note, there was no Wonder Trade Wednesday stream this Wednesday due to it coinciding with Christmas Day, a holiday that I celebrate with my family. It was to be rescheduled for Friday, December 27th, where I would give away one full box of Shiny Pokémon over Wonder Trade while streaming. However, as newer players are currently unable to participate in Wonder Trade due to the Nintendo eShop issues, I will be rescheduling theShiny Pokémon Wonder Trade Wednesday stream for Wednesday, January 1st, at 2:00pm CST. Instead, I will have a different Wonder Trade stream Friday, December 27th, at 2:00pm CST and will Wonder Trade away various starters and Pokémon only obtainable from Pokémon Bank. There will be no 8:00pm stream.
