Splatoon

Update:

Surprisingly, servers re-opened shortly after the session was due to close, with connection issues initially intermittent before performance improved to near-perfect levels. Nintendo formally extended the session to 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am UK / 2am CET, with that extra hour largely running as smoothly as the original three Testfire sessions.

Original Article:

When Nintendo ran three Splatoon Global Testfire sessions over the course of a single weekend they went impressively well; aside from occasional disconnections the performance was reliable and gave a good impression. Unfortunately the 'final round' somewhat betrayed those positives with sustained connection problems that shut down most of the session.

During our live blog play went down after less than 10 minutes, though Nintendo's official network status timed the error at 13 minutes in; the following message was posted to acknowledge the issues.

Due to a high amount of online traffic, network services may be intermittently unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience.

Social media certainly exploded with the bad news, as tends to be the case, with #SplatoonGlobalTestfire trending on Twitter.

The servers remained down until the close of the original hour-long session, and it's unclear at the time of writing whether Nintendo will schedule another Global Testfire to appease fans and, also, re-test its servers. Beyond the obvious disappointment for Wii U fans, it raises concerns ahead of the title's launch - a further test could benefit Nintendo in multiple ways.

Splatoon is due in stores on 29th May, so there's not long to arrange a replacement Testfire session if that is on the cards. (Now unlikely, see update at the top of the article)

Were you trying to play in this 'final' Splatoon Global Testfire session? What are your thoughts on its problems? Let us know in the comments.

As an extra note, thanks to the witty folks on Twitter for the tagline.