It’s not quite as simple as it used to be. Back in the day you’d get your shiny brand new Nintendo 64 from Santa, freak out in such a historic way that the internet still remembers it 20-odd years later, plug it into your CRT TV and be fanging around a Mario Kart track within mere minutes. Nowadays, you’ve got out-of-the-box system updates, digital download redemptions, and game patches to contend with, meaning you’re probably better off leaving it to run while you spend a few hours doing other things.
And on a day like Christmas Day where thousands of new users are trying to log on for the first time simultaneously? You can probably forget about it altogether.
Both the Nintendo and Playstation networks struggled under the weight of new Christmas users across the night, as the world slowly woke up and unwrapped their gifts.
For users trying to hit up the PSN to redeem digital downloads, the network struggled under the weight of the demand, with scores of gamers reporting problems connecting to the network.
What gives? Is PSN down? @AskPlayStation pic.twitter.com/8YbRzOXSnu
— Jim Geer (@MrJimGeer) December 25, 2017
Playstation admitted that some users were experiencing issues connecting to the network, with voucher codes not redeeming throughout the night.
We’re aware that some users are having issues redeeming vouchers on PSN. Thank you for your patience as we investigate. Please be sure to follow us for further news and updates.
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) December 25, 2017
But for Nintendo users the problem was bigger: The entire Nintendo eShop buckled completely, going down across the board leaving people gifted with a brand new Switch to realise they’ve (temporarily) been handed a shiny new brick.
We apologize for any issues you may be experiencing with Nintendo eShop. We are working on it and hope to have this resolved soon.
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 25, 2017
The eShop interruption affected all consoles attempting to connect to the store, meaning new consoles trying to download vital system updates were unable to do so.
Nintendo’s website even appears to be struggling, with the network status page intermittently returning 504 Gateway timeouts, and the EN homepage returning strange errors.
Services to both networks have been slowly returning over the course of the morning, with Ask Playstation confirming the network the issue has been resolved.
The issue regarding voucher redemption on PSN has now been resolved. Please try redeeming vouchers as normal. If you have any issues, please reach out to us.
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) December 25, 2017
Meanwhile Nintendo’s Japanese arm has confirmed that the eShop issues have been fixed for at least the Japanese servers.
In past Christmases the PSN and Xbox Live networks have been the subject of DDoS attacks by notorious hacker groups like Lizard Squad, though there’s no outward suggestion that this has been the case this year.
Xbox Live networks reportedly remained up and running throughout the 2017 Christmas rush.
