As kids and adults alike flocked to the Nintendo eShop, eager to spend the gift cards they found in their stockings, that excitement was quickly spoiled by an eShop error screen. The annual holiday surge brought down the Nintendo Switch eShop for some yet again, according to a report from Kotaku. Service was brought back around 4:30AM ET on December 26th, a whole 24 hours later.
We are aware that players are experiencing errors accessing Nintendo eShop, and are working to address the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding, and please see our Network Status page for the latest updates.https://t.co/KnM0g7z7jn
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 25, 2021
During the outage, Nintendo sent out a tweet, noting that the company is “working to address the issue as soon as possible.” It also included a link to Nintendo’s online service status page, where it displays updates about any current outages.
As noted on the status page, problems started to arise around 4AM ET on Christmas morning, and weren’t resolved until 24 hours later. The company didn’t offer any additional information on the outage, 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 acknowledge that the store is back online.
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In a timeline of the outages shown on Downdetector, it appears that issues peaked at around 9AM ET on Christmas morning, but then took a decline. I was able to successfully open the Nintendo Switch eShop, as well as download a couple of updates at around 4:30PM ET that night, a sign that things were starting to come back online.
The outage didn’t affect any other online activity, like playing games online. It just prevented players from buying and downloading any content from the eShop — which was probably a bummer for those who were looking to fill their new Switch with digital games.
The Nintendo eShop went down last year during Christmas, and the company didn’t fully restore service until the next day. Nintendo even warned players that the eShop might become overloaded this holiday weekend, and advised them to create a Nintendo account before the holidays, which isn’t really ideal if you wanted to gift the Switch to someone on Christmas Day.
The Verge reached out to Nintendo with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Update December 26th, 2021 8:20AM ET: Updated to acknowledge that the Nintendo Switch eShop is back online as of 4:30AM ET on December 26th.
