17 replies to this topic

[Zinix]

One month after the last Nintendo Direct...

Nintendo can be accused of many things, often unfairly, but sleeping on the online job surely isn't one of them. The current generation of Wii U and 3DS has seen the company drastically evolve and update its online infrastructure, and system maintenance has been a regular feature of just that. Sometimes the work of Nintendo's tech whizzes can give us clues, however, to something on the way or — equally possible — nothing at all.

So which will it be this time? Nintendo is planning coordinated extended maintenance that'll affect the Wii U and 3DS eShop platforms on 13th March, well after the day's Download Update. What's made us raise our eyebrows to a slightly uncomfortable degree is that this is exactly one month after the last Nintendo Direct, and we know how Nintendo likes to make them a monthly affair.

Random speculation aside, below are the times when disruption is expected on the Wii U and 3DS eShop.

From Thursday, March 13, 2014 1pm Pacific / 4pm Eastern / 8pm UK / 9pm CET to Thursday, March 13, 2014 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / midnight UK (14th March) / 1am CET.

Affected Services:
Wii U

• Nintendo eShop

Nintendo 3DS

• Nintendo eShop

Also of interest for you Pokémon X & Y gamers is that online play and services for the game will be affected for a whopping 14 hours on 11th March for maintenance.

From Monday, March 10, 2014 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / midnight UK / 1am CET to Tuesday, March 11, 2014 7am Pacific / 10am Eastern / 2pm UK / 3pm CET

Affected Services:
Nintendo 3DS

• Online Play, Rankings, etc. for Pokémon X, Pokémon Y

So, what do you think Thursday's maintenance points to? Will it follow a Nintendo Direct as it has on occasions in the past, lay the ground for an update, or do absolutely nothing that any of us can notice? Speculate wildly in the comments below.

[via http://www.nintendo....work_status.jsp">nintendo.com, http://www.nintendo....n_GB/index.html">nintendo.co.jp]

 

http://www.nintendol..._for_13th_march

 

Nintendo Direct? 

 

Pweeease. 

[Kokirii]

sweeeeet

[3Dude]

Wild speculation time?

Account system?

[alan123]

Nice of Nintendo to do this in peaktime 

[Raiden]

Nice of Nintendo to do this in peaktime 

Because Sony and MS never do...

 

 

...people will complain no matter what....

[Scumbag]

"Nintendo can be accused of many things, often unfairly, but sleeping on the online job surely isn't one of them"

 

Agree completely with that sentence, we have had so many updates that looking back to what we were given at launch is something Nintendo haven't been appreciated for. Especially for a free service, I think Nintendo HAS embraced online.

[Hunter]

Because Sony and MS never do...

 

 

...people will complain no matter what....

 

I suspect alan has been complaining since the moment he came into this world. He's one of these people who enjoy complaining so it's probably best to just leave him be.

I'm surprised nollog hasn't posted anything about the addition of folders to the wii u menu on here yet

[Azure-Edge]

Meh. Wait and see what happens, but I don't think anyone should be getting hyped. 

[alan123]

I suspect alan has been complaining since the moment he came into this world. He's one of these people who enjoy complaining so it's probably best to just leave him be.

I'm surprised nollog hasn't posted anything about the addition of folders to the wii u menu on here yet

MS & Sony usually have the downtime at different times for different regions, Nintendo shut down the whole thing worldwide.

[Nollog]

Nice of Nintendo to do this in peaktime 

Hard to find a time that suits every timezone worldwide, yet still has people working in the timezones the servers are located.
 

"Nintendo can be accused of many things, often unfairly, but sleeping on the online job surely isn't one of them"
 
Agree completely with that sentence, we have had so many updates that looking back to what we were given at launch is something Nintendo haven't been appreciated for. Especially for a free service, I think Nintendo HAS embraced online.

Tell that to Christmas.
Their entire network took a carp for about a week.
I call that sleeping on the job.
Doing maintenance at annoying times is foolish, and shouldn't be praised as "not sleeping on the job".

Nintendo are too cheap to spend money paying network admins overtime to keep the impact on prime time hours at a minimum.
While I love seeing the three subsidiaries co-ordinate like this, this is one area they should never do it in.
How about translating games while NoJ studios are actually programming them into all 7 EU languages and then handing them to another translator to handle the American localisation from Real English?
That'd be a much better co-ordination than having an 8 hour chunk is broad daylight in the EU while it's in prime-time home-from-work-want-to-enjoy-console time in the US and early morning in Japan or whatever the times are.

I'm surprised nollog hasn't posted anything about the addition of folders to the wii u menu on here yet

Folders aren't in the eShop, they're in the system menu, firmware, or os.

I doubt they have anything planned.
The eShop gets some downtime maintenance every few months, and has since the 3DS launched it.

Actually, I have a theory of what they're doing.
Just because it effects Pokemon X & Y too.
It's probably something to do with the pokebank, they probably have to go through everyone's account and remove the pokebank trial from them, because Nintendo are probably idiotic in some way and need to do this.

Edited by Nollog, 09 March 2014 - 03:15 PM.

[Hunter]

Folders aren't in the eShop, they're in the system menu, firmware, or os.

 

 

Ah I didn't read the article properly then.

 

But seriously, I wonder if we will ever see folders added somewhere down the line.

[GAMER1984]

Wild speculation time?

Account system?

 

I will take as many directs as I can get. I hope this is so I personally wasnt that satisfied with last direct. If I was them in their position I would have a Wii U direct every month with new gameplay and info on upcoming games. They need to market in ANY way possible.

[grahamf]

"Nintendo can be accused of many things, often unfairly, but sleeping on the online job surely isn't one of them"

 

Agree completely with that sentence, we have had so many updates that looking back to what we were given at launch is something Nintendo haven't been appreciated for. Especially for a free service, I think Nintendo HAS embraced online.

I think it's more a case of Nintendo being very adverse to bugs and want to patch them as soon as discovered.

[Scumbag]

I think it's more a case of Nintendo being very adverse to bugs and want to patch them as soon as discovered.

 

Yeah, that and probably work to reduce people hacking Wii U/3ds. I'm not expecting anything major in this update but was meaning their attitude to online in general has been above expectations.

[lucario23]

Yeah, that and probably work to reduce people hacking Wii U/3ds. I'm not expecting anything major in this update but was meaning their attitude to online in general has been above expectations.

 

They're getting there. I'm not cutting them slack yet, but I will acknowledge they are slowly improving. This generation is the generation of catch up for Nintendo. I'll be curious to see where they end this generation and start the next.

[Edshadow9488]

Will they fix the blacklist online to matchmake way better than it does?

[Raiden]

This maybe a pipe dream but sometimes every so often Nintendo surpises. I am not saying it will happen this update nor asking for it this update but I do ask that Nintendo ties digital purchases to an account not a console.  Little things like that hold the system back quite a bit for a consumer.

[Akazury]

This maybe a pipe dream but sometimes every so often Nintendo surpises. I am not saying it will happen this update nor asking for it this update but I do ask that Nintendo ties digital purchases to an account not a console.  Little things like that hold the system back quite a bit for a consumer.

They're working on it, it just takes time.