According to ScreenRant, Nintendo has advised those planning to give the Nintendo Switch as a gift during the year-end holiday season to order the device before Christmas morning, as the company’s servers can be overloaded during the holidays.
The Nintendo Switch is expected to be a popular gift this year, especially with the recent launch of the new Nintendo Switch OLED model. And there will be more players looking to the Nintendo eShop on Christmas morning to install new games onto their devices.
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Nintendo encourages users to create accounts before Christmas |
Nintendo Switch requires users to go through a series of setup steps before it can be played. Players must create a Nintendo account or sign in to an existing account when the device boots up. Users will then need to connect a payment method to the Nintendo eShop before the game can be downloaded using an internet connection. All of these steps require the Nintendo servers to be up and running, and while eShop issues are usually resolved quickly by Nintendo, the servers sometimes still crash with heavy use.
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So, when multiple Switch consoles are ‘unpacked’ on Christmas Day, which means a ton of new Nintendo accounts are created all at once, potentially causing problems for users. Therefore, the company requires that both Nintendo Switch givers and recipients should set up accounts in advance to avoid overcrowding. This isn’t the first year Nintendo’s servers have crashed over the Christmas holidays. The eShop went down last Christmas, leaving new Switch users unable to download any games.
While this announcement from Nintendo will certainly improve the experience for new customers, it also raises concerns about the power of Nintendo’s servers. The large influx of players at Christmas causing problems is understandable, but gaming is increasingly becoming a cloud-based medium. With the recent release of Switch Online’s Expansion Pack, server stability is more important than ever, and Nintendo desperately needs to keep up with demand.
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