Random: Switch Online Service Launch Has Caused All Sorts Of Issues For Chinese Players

That is what happens when you have half baked solutions.
The excuse for a cheap online subscription is not enough for Nintendo to provide such a barebones service.

"Switch Online Service Launch Has Caused All Sorts Of Issues For Chinese Players"
......
"Chinese Government's Internet Restrictions Has Caused All Sorts of Issues for Chinese Players"

(@tourjeff Did you read the whole thing?)

China is a land of Counterfeits.
I wonder if the Online infrastuctures over there also have some counterfeits wires, counterfeits spare parts, counterfeits bla bla bla, etc....

Or maybe Chinese president FORCE the Chinese peoples to REJECT Foreign cultures invasion.

Blame it on Sweden, China!

I blame the weather. The cloud is blocking the sun

Is the switch even officially sold there? I thought their focus was Hong Kong and Taiwan which may have different internet restrictions...

If that is the case, not much Nintendo can do about it. Only so much bending you can do to appease one government. Large population or not.
Edit: Yeah the switch isn't officially sold in China so not much Nintendo can...or should do about this.

@tourjeff what are you talking about? They are banned because of the google infrastructure which is banned in China not due to any features of the service.

@HobbitGamer Yes, I did, did you?
From my understanding, the article implies that Nintendo uses Google servers for part of its online services and Google has issues with the Communist government in China so....
Why not avoid all of it with a proper Nintendo "only" solution?
Or how about to start offering chat on the Switch console only without the need of a mobile phone?
Again, when you have half baked solutions you get half baked results (in this case complaints).

I don't think the Switch is officially available in Cina, so why shoukd the App be? Seems kind of odd.🤨

@Ryu_Niiyama From my understanding, the article implies that Nintendo uses Google servers for part of its online services and Google has issues with the Communist government in China so....
Why not avoid all of it with a proper Nintendo "only" solution?
Or how about to start offering chat on the Switch console only without the need of a mobile phone?
Again, when you have half baked solutions you get half baked results (in this case complaints).

@Ryu_Niiyama Yes, it is. I'm friends with a number of international students from China at my college, and one of them owns a Nintendo Switch back home. We've had talks of playing online when she returns to China, but I don't know how we can arrange that exactly, with the Chinese government restricting what kinds of social media they can use to connect with me. I wasn't sure if Nintendo's paid online service was going to be introduced over there or if she would subscribe, so this article comes at a very appropriate time. Hopefully this issue gets sorted out soon, as they will return to China in about a week.

@1UP_MARIO
"I blame the weather. The cloud is blocking the sun"

@tourjeff this has absolutely nothing to do with that.

"Google servers to blame?"
Yes let's blame Google instead of Communist China's oppressive government

@tourjeff The article says "Some Chinese users now believe", and the Twitter account isn't an official Nintendo one.
Google doesn't 'have issues', it's outright banned.

When one country that is known globally for having restrictive control of internet assets has an issue connecting to something, it's not really anyone's fault except that country.

@NewAdvent
Yup my Neighbor Frank had a visit from Nintendo when the Switch first launched. He was handed a briefcase included inside it was a special Switch filled to the brim with every Switch game to ever exist. It was his sole responsibility to use his internet connection to run the Nintendo eShop. That way Nintendo would have zero servers they ever have to worry about....

main problem its affected their ability to cheat lol

I am an Expat in China and before the release of NSO I never had a problem with playing online, and after NSO came out I also haven't had any problems, I bought my Switch in China, maybe the players which are affected are using a VPN router which is being blocked, I don't even have to use a VPN to play and as I said I have never had a problem after NSO started.

"is hosted on Google servers - a service which is banned in the country."

Well since it's Nintneod I expected a lot more problems than something that can be easily blamed on the Chinese gov't so if this is as bad as it gets for them I'll still be impressed w/ the service rollout. There are about 20 million Switch and the service rolled out with a free trial to everyone at once, it could have been a disaster.

So yes, maybe it's something that Nintedo could have seen coming, but my guess is they had 2 priorities, US and Japan. No offense rest of the world, but that's my guess.

And speaking of guesses, when is Nintneod going to announce the Switch has outsold the lifetime Gamecube sales? Surely it's passed it by now, it was so close the end of July. You hearing anything @Damo We heard non-stop about how much better it was doing than Wii U, nary a peep on Gamecube. Between the Fortnite, SSBU and Pokemon bundles we may be talking about outselling the N64 before the Gameubce news comes out.

The Switch Online is the gift that keeps on giving...

... joke-wise. Fact-wise, instead, it's something that needs an October Direct ASAP because it seems the service has a lot more to prove.

New services always have problems at launch. Give it some time, it'll be worked out.

@Not_Soos Everything to do with social media is blocked here, a few months ago Discord was blocked, NSO works fine here, but my account is based on the UK e-shop so that might affect something I'm not sure, unless She uses a VPN to contact you the best thing would be to use Wechat (weixin) to arrange things with her.

That's what they get for not releasing Wii/Gamecube games in the eShop.

Of course Google is banned in China. Two totalitarian organizations that exist to know every detail about every one at every moment can't possibly compete in the same geography!

Can't fault for Nintendo for using one of the only 3 real worldwide cloud providers that operate at scale. Particularly of the 3 global cloud providers, Google is the only one that (so far) is not either a direct competitor (Microsoft/Azure Cloud/XBox), or a direct retail client (Amazon/EC2.)

@tourjeff You do realize that most of the internet that runs on "the cloud" means most of the internet is hosted by one of 3 companies, right? Only Google, Amazon, and Microsoft run large scale "cloud" infrastructure, where most of the internet runs on virtual servers in the massive datacenters by those 3 companies? Yes, you can spend on your own infrastructure, your own servers, and some companies do for varying reasons, but that's the 20% outlying part of the internet that for one reason or another (security, privacy, economy of scale, etc) benefit from a private network. But these days most of the "cloud" is just operating through various 'leased' space in one of those three networks. Nintendo trying to roll out their own global cloud infrastructure would be absurdly expensive and isn't how most of the cloud works today.

I'm not saying you should like that reality. In fact you shouldn't. It's disastrous, stupid, a direct threat to an open society, a step toward imitating China's totalitarian centralization, censorship, and at the absolute kindest, a step back into feudalism. And yet that's "the cloud" everyone praises so much leading to "progress!"

There's nothing anti-Nintendo about this. This is about Nintendo using one of the 3 options available (Who knows what Sony uses, and Microsoft obviously is one of the 3 so they use their own) and the only competitor to the 3, the Chinese government itself, colliding.

There's a reason Switch isn't officially sold in China at all. Anyone with a switch just imported one.

@8bit_squid Sorry, factual information isn't allowed in forum "discussions," lol!

@NewAdvent Eshop and the cloud saves probably have their own servers. Splatoon 2, ARMS, Mario Tennis Aces, and MK8DX while P2P still use servers for matchmaking and authentication

@NEStalgia Now that I think of it, it wouldn't be too surprising if the majority of Nintendo's online infrastructure is being handled by googles servers or something like that

@tourjeff Nintendo has nothing to do with that and finding any reason however far fetched it might be, just to complain is not very wise.

Like @NEStalgia said, all cloud services are basically running on one of the three big corporations and Nintendo is no different. Nintendo uses Google, Microsoft uses their own (Azure) and Sony uses Amazon.

If anybody wants more food for thought that this is on China more than Ntinedo, China doens't like Amazon either. Or online gaming in general. Or the rest of the world for that matter.

https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/21/technology/twitch-china-blocked-amazon/index.html

10 years from now there may be 2 Internets, China and US lead.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/20/eric-schmidt-ex-google-ceo-predicts-internet-split-china.html

@Not_Soos She could use a VPN. It must be set in the router, costs money, and I believe the government tries blocking them often. But it will elimimate all restrictions when set right (and connected to a different country, I'd imagine). It will increase latency.

Google, Amazon and ms are three of the big cloud service providers. Nintendo would be foolish to try and put their own cloud servers in place for this, they're a games company. Much more sensible to use a cloud provided by a market leading tech company like Google, from a global perspective anyway....

Stupid conclusion by the writer :
"Google servers to blame?"

Fix this by:
"Chinese government to blame!"

Please stop idiotic accusations against Western companies who gets banned for no reason in China.

Google and Nintendo can't be blamed for this nonsense.

When it comes to China everyone is to blame except for China.

@NEStalgia doesn’t sony use rackspace’s openstack? I know they used AWS at one point.

I don't use the service, but since it launched, the eshop works fine times slower for me. .-.

Cya
Raziel-chan

Sounds like China needs more internet tubes. As an American politician said, the internet is just a series of tubes, after all

@Braok @8bit_squid One of them told me about the WeChat app and has been trying to convince me to download it. With their government being as restrictive as it is, though, it gives me concerns about whether or not they would want an outsider like me having an account. Should I be worried about that?

@tourjeff

You clearly do not now what you are talking about. Nintendo doesn't have the resources to make a global scaled online service totally by themselves.

Everyone is using the big three for this. Google, Amazon or Microsoft.

It would cost Nintendo billions to make a similar infrastructure and offer the same uptime and quality like the big three cloud providers. Not even Sony can't do something like this by themselves.

@Mando44646 I haven't heard that before, but it sounds like something W. Bush would say. If I'm wrong I'll eat my hat.

@Ryu_Niiyama IIRC OpenStack itself was moved to EC2 long ago. It's more or less a VAR reseller of AWS now.

@dres Probably not but this doesn't make any less true that the Nintendo online service is a half baked service elsewhere.

@NEStalgia Bullocks.

Both Microsoft and Amazon would be more than happy to host Nintendo Online on their cloud infrastructure.

It's just that Google is woefully behind Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS and struggling to capture any significant market share in the cloud market.
https://www.atomia.com/2016/11/24/comparing-the-geographical-coverage-of-aws-azure-and-google-cloud/

So Google probably offered their cloud services practically for free, just to get Nintendo on board as reference customer and then collect all your gaming activities in return.

Nintendo wouldn't be Nintendo if they weren't going for the cheapest solution, not the best solution.

@Not_Soos Hope it's a tasty hat. Was a Senator for Alaska in '06. 86-year old Ted Stevens. He basically described the internet like a great-grandparent would.

"Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

@Not_SoosI Its not a problem at all, I believe its available in the google play app store so it's not just for Chinese people. If she is looking for a good VPN for access to western sites I highly recommend VPN Unlimited, its unknown in China really, which means it never gets blocked. I have used it for about 5 years and its never been bocked, at certain times it goes on sale and you can get a good deal, I got a lifetime membership for about £80

@Jeronan All true of Google, and you could well be right about the costs to Nintendo. But it doesn't change the fact that hosting your entire business on your competitor's servers would be idiotic, and hosting your business on one of your retail client's servers isn't much less idiotic (note Walmart has an active effort to get their data off Amazon's servers, because, go figure, Amazon can leverage your data for their own gain, which is really what the modern cloud data world is all about: Blackmail. 3 global feudal estates that know everything about everyone else.

I despise google and cringe at the thought of any service storing any more of my data in Google, but....in this case it's not like it's actually a bad choice.

Keep in mind, Switch is not sold in China. It really doesn't matter to Nintendo at all if Chinese players can't access NSO, they're not even selling in China, these are just people that import them. That's why nVidia was bringing a few Nintendo games to Shield, as an avenue for some Nintendo games to sell in the China market where they don't actually have a hardware sales operation. This isn't a case of "Nintendo's service doesn't work in China, didn't they plan this?" It's not actually for sale in China, so whether it works or not doesn't really matter other than to fans and importers in China.

Then again, if they're playing video games, their social score is dropping by the minute, I suppose..... they may not have to worry about it for long.

@HobbitGamer Ha! Joke's on you, I don't even have a hat. #GotEmGood

@8bit_squid Alright, thanks! I don't really know what a VPN is or how it works; it's completely Greek to me. And if I try to explain Greek to a Chinese person with limited English skills, I don't imagine it will go over well. The app should suffice, as long as the Chinese government won't, like, be able to spy on me or something. I'm a very paranoid individual, haha.

@Not_Soos Basically your internet connection goes through a server in a different country before going to a website. The most important thing to know is that it lets you use sites such as youtube, facebook etc. while being in a country that restricts its internet like here in China. It also hides your identity and what sites you are visiting.

@NEStalgia You don't know what you are talking about.

Both Amazon and Microsoft operate their Cloud platforms as neutral entities with strict privacy and non-competitive guidelines or they won't get any serious business on their Cloud platform!

Amazon will think twice taking the risk of scavenging the data from Walmart for own gains, as Amazon would be instantly finished and out of business when such a severe breach of conduct would be discovered! And discovered it will! You can bet on it.

It's the same for Microsoft Azure. There is a good reason why they have fought so vigorously with the US government to protect their customers data from the NSA!
It was blocking Major (Non-)US customers from going to the cloud, because of the NSA's demands.

When it comes to the Public cloud. Trust is everything! If customers can't trust Microsoft, Amazon or Google with their "sensitive" data, the Cloud platform would be dead.

@8bit_squid Ah, okay, thanks. With there being a slight language barrier sometimes in conversation, I probably won't attempt to explain it to her. Can Chinese gamers still play online with others around the world without a VPN? Provided Nintendo can fix how the service works in China, that is.

@Jeronan Yeah, @NEStalgia, you don't know what you're talking about! These companies would never do anything that would benefit them financially. They told me so on my tinfoil hat!
Cambridge Analytica even sent me an email saying they deleted all my Facebook data they were using, for only $5.99. That's trust.

@Not_Soos In regards to NSO I have had no problems what so ever, I am a big fan of Splatoon 2 and spend most of my time playing it and it's been the same as it was before NSO, I only use a VPN on my phone and my Mac, my switch connects directly to the Chinese internet, the connection is stable and fast as well, for other games I can't really think of a game in which you would need a VPN to play in China unless it uses google play services such as Pokemon Go. But if you are just planning on playing switch games with her there will be no problems at all.

@8bit_squid I loved being an expad in China. But I couldnt post my screen captures onto fb. I had vpn for tablet and Iphone but had no clue how to set it up for Switch

@mr12calvin You would have needed to have a VPN router and connect the switch, I tried to set it up by connecting my switch to my phone via hotspot and having the VPN on my phone n but it just had error messages.

China + Google = Inevitable disaster

@HobbitGamer When it comes to their Cloud platforms. No they won't!

Stealing data from your own paying customers for financial gain is corporate suicide.
When such a severe breach of conduct would be discovered they will be finished! As they would instant loose all their customers.
There would be no end to the lawsuits they will be facing, until they are bankrupt and closing doors.

The implications would be so severe, you have no idea. It would immediately be the end of the Public cloud.

@Jeronan Like when Facebook lost all of its customers, right? Or Google admitting yesterday that it lets third parties read the data of your gmail?

@HobbitGamer You exactly proof my point you don't know what you are talking about.

Facebook sold the user data of Facebook. It's their own product.

Gmail is owned by who again? Yes you figured right. Google! It's their own product.

In both Facebook and Google's privacy guidelines, which you agreed upon by accepting the terms to use the service, it explicitly says that your usage data will be collected and may be used by third parties.

So it really shouldn't have come to any's surprise.

The Facebook scandal was way more serious, because Facebook sold the data to a company that works for Political clients. Worse, this company got access to the Facebook backbone, so they could specifically target certain US voters and inject fake news to manipulate them for Political gain.

@Jeronan Oh, they have strict guidelines that they promise they won't use data in their network for their own gain even where nobody could ever catch them for it? Oh, that's different. Given I trust any group of profit motivated humans based on their public guarantees of intent, that really solves that problem completely!

You should probably run for the chairmanship of one of Amazon's competitors which are scrambling to remove as much data as possible from Amazon's network out of concerns of exactly that kind of trouble, since Amazon already uses data of the sellers in the Marketplace on a minute-to-minute bases to undercut them and supplant them with their own offerings. If only the boardroom of Walmart Corp. knew that Amazon's cloud platfrom had strict privacy policies, they wouldn't worry at all!

Wait....you thought the muppet theatre of Microsoft protecting customer data from the NSA was real?! This same microsoft that already agreed to install backdoors in their hardware and software, just as the rest of the tech industry did?!

Wait, hang on, can you send me your bank account numbers? Don't worry, I won't steal from you, I just want to verify their authenticity. It's ok, you can trust me, I'm publicly give you my word!

The illusion of trust and actually being trustworthy are not the same thing. They hold all the power, and what they do behind their closed doors is very unlikely to be found out, and even if it is, they own the law in the jurisdictions they operate. They may not be sitting there, sinister, going line by line through Walmart data, but is there high risk they can algorithmically "discover" things with plausible deniability. Even traffic trends? You bet.

@HobbitGamer and Apple that monitors frequency of calls and emails to secretly assign you a trust score? Heck, that doesn't even cover the stuff at the hardware level. UEFI is no simple BIOS of old....and the more you understand it the more you wish you didn't.

@Jeronan I wish I could have your high faith in humanity. There's a very ugly, very common saying in the US: "It's not wrong unless you're caught" and it's cousn't "It's only illegal if you get caught." This mentality informs the way most levels of society here operate, unfortunately. It was not always that way, but it is today. This is especially true in business.

Your mentality is irrationally hopeful that the truth as presented is the truth as applied. The question to ask is not: Are they legally bound to respect data privacy? The question to ask is: What would have to happen for them to actually get caught abusing it on a scale that their ownership of the legal system in their jurisdictions would not be able to look the other way and/or hush it?

@8bit_squid Okay, thanks!

@NewAdvent Cause most people probably dont have much of a clue about what really goes into making an online service work. You need servers in some shape or form. Nintendo Wifi Connection as well as the majority of Nintendo's online during the Wii and DS era was actually run through Gamespy's servers hence why Nintendo Wi Fi connection pretty much died when Gamespy shut down.

@NEStalgia Simple. Global media exposure.

You really believe they could get away with it silently behind some court rooms in this day and age?

I had expected you to know better, after both Facebook and Google have been exposed and so many other recent scandals.

You can bet that some very smart hackers are constantly probing these cloud platforms.

Also, when you put sensitive corporate data in the cloud, you will encrypt it.

If we take Walmart as example, if they put sensitive corporate data on Amazon AWS and don't encrypt it. I can assure you that Amazon themselves would be the least of their worries.

The voice-chat is to blame? So if the console had built in voice-chat, they wouldn't be using Google servers for it, right? Seems like an easy fix.

@NEStalgia Yep, they're ignored
That's a viewpoint I can't agree with, and refuse to discuss when there's no room for listening.

Now...about that bank account, which digits to you need to put on Microsoft's offshore data center?

The Great Firewall of China!

Does it stop clouds flying over?

@Not_Soos not Bush, alas. But definitely a Republican - Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)

Government censorship, not a news.

@Jeronan Wow, that is seriously some amazing trust in human integrity. I remember having that viewpoint. I was 5 or so, but still, it was nice.

Let me know in 5, 10, 30, 50 years after that global media exposure inevitably becomes required and occurs, how all that trust was well placed.

Meanwhile, I and the executive leadership of Walmart and other major corporations will keep our tin foil hats firmly in place.

@Jeronan "You can bet that some very smart hackers" Yes, only the very best in security verification here at amazon.

(I don't know anything about it, just thought that was a funny "Guarantee")

Secondly, you're saying that it's feasible, just that amazon wouldn't take the risk right? (trying to understand it from a business standpoint.)
So what would make Nintendo want to take the risk? It'd be awful for Amazon, but also for Nintendo if that 99.999% happens. Is there enough incentive for Nintendo to take the risk? A sort of, what's at stake and what can be gained comparison. Do they not have the risk of "very smart hackers" from competitors currently? if the information is encrypted? (as in, apart from amazon taking data, are all other risks the same with their current solution vs switching to amazon hosting)

@NEStalgia
Maybe you should have a look on the customer reference list of Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, before making any more comments.

By your infinite wisdom and your infinite logic.

If you can't trust Amazon AWS, you can't trust Microsoft Azure, you can't trust Google Cloud, you can't trust any data center. No one. Not even their own IT employees.

Instead, Walmart should pull all it's servers from Amazon AWS, put them in a cave somewhere deep in the Rocky Mountains, disconnected from the internet. Pour meters of concrete over it so no one can access it except the military with an atomic bomb.
Then Walmart will be absolutely sure their precious data is safe.

That they then go bankrupt afterwards is obvious of course.

My god! I seriously hope you don't work as IT advisor. /FACEPALM

Maybe you should also read this article, before you try to comment again:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazons-finds-its-profit-horse-in-aws-why-its-so-disruptive-to-its-old-guard/

In other words, Amazon makes more money now with their AWS platform than their retail business.

Same with Microsoft. They put all their cards on their Azure cloud platform as their main business focus.

Customer's trust and safeguarding their data is their main goal to succeed in this business and ensure future revenue growth!

You seriously think either Microsoft or Amazon is going to jeopardize their main income source and the future of their business, by stealing data from their own paying customers?

To even compare AWS and Azure to Facebook and Google Gmail or the Cambridge Analytica scandal is just off the rocker!

Everyone and their grandmother knows what Facebook is and does with your data. This has been known for years. You are Facebook's main product!
Same with Google and it's services. You are their main product! Their main income is advertising money. So how can they target you with specific advertisments? By collecting your personal data and analyzing your habits, whereabouts, movements, etc.

So please explain where the hell Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure fit in that discussion? They are in a completely different line of business.

Stupid China. Can't blame Nintendo for this one.

@J_C Google Cloud entered very late to the cloud game, with currently very few data centers available globally.

Both Microsoft and Amazon's cloud platform is way more robust and globally present.

This has a huge impact on global availability, local latency performance, redundancy and availability for your customers.

Nintendo Online is a global service, so connectivity and latency performance will be much better on Amazon's or Microsoft's Cloud platform.

Not to mention having a cloud provider with many access/edge locations, means they are much better able to cope with threats like DDOS attacks for example. Which has been plaguing Xbox Live and PSN for years now. Especially PSN still.

Nintendo poses no competitive threat to either Microsoft or Amazon. In fact, they both benefit from Nintendo.
Amazon sells their wares and Microsoft sells their games on Nintendo's platforms like the still very popular Minecraft.
They are also at the forefront of Cross-Platform play together.

Nothing that goes through the internet is completely private. Facebook, Google, group hobby sites(like deviantart, Nintendolife) etc.

I imagine Nintendo might have once tried to enter the Chinese market, and couldn't, or couldn't possibly without (requested) changes to their operations(locally, or otherwise). Or, maybe the demand for Nintendo products in that area is not high enough, for Nintendo to care.

No matter who hosts their servers, that company is not at fault, Nintendo is for not researching a market they entered. They just took their money.

@J_C

I can't follow you, and do not totally understand what you want to say?

But I can say so much. From a business point of view, Nintendo has no other choice than to go either Google, Microsoft or Amazon for their kind of hosting needs.

People have extremely high demands for the kind of online service that Nintendo just released. Nintendo doesn't have the resources to host such a service by themselves on a global scale.

It would cost them billions and years to build such big data centres around the globe. And this would only be worth it, if Nintendo themselves wanted to go into the cloud hosting business, and be a hosting provider for other companies. I don't think they want to do that

@Jeronan

I do not agree with you on what you wrote in your last comment. In everything else I agree with you.

Do you have any sources on that Google is behind MS and Amazon on data centres around the globe? And that their cloud hosting is inferior? I do not believe it.

I recall Google and MS going into the cloud hosting business about the same time.

@dres check one of my first posts, I put a link in it pointing to a data center map of the three providers.

Google is shockingly behind. Not suprising since they simply don’t give it the same focus as Amazon AWS and Microsoft.

Amazon AWS lead is obvious, since they had a 5 year headstart over the competition that will be difficult to catch up too.

Microsoft is relentless with the sheer amount of money they have and still are pouring into it.
The have been stamping data centers out of the ground like crazy the last years with the single one goal to overtake AWS.

That is why Microsoft has been losing money like crazy with Azure the past years, but now it’s finally starting to pay off.

As Senior IT consultant, over 18 years in the business, I am in the smack middle of it all.
Really it’s all about Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS these days.
Google cloud is rarely even mentioned. It’s surprising really.
At least here in Europe. Maybe it’s different in the US?

@Jeronan

Thanks for the info.

MS is perhaps leading on centres compared to Google. But I am not sure that their service is so much better, though.

Glad I don't live in China!

@tourjeff its china government fault not the switch online service.

Can confirm, eshop doesnt work half of the time, cloud backups never work. Was working before with a manual DNS Server IP but it seems nintendo or china's firewall is checking this now.

Makes no sense to buy the online membership only for the NES games - at least they work. Single player only, of course.

@zufa86 its working fine for me plus i got the online service to play online on MHGU and other online games.

@Camilla Which area? Which internet provider? Home or mobile internet? I usually get errors which point to network issues accirding to the nintendo error page. It was working fine before the 6.0.0 update.

I any case i dont consider myself an online player but i would have bought into it for mario kart which was also working before, and the upcoming smash and super mario party.

@zufa86 where do you live man cause i live in california.

@Camilla wow, thats good for you. The whole topic here is about users in china have problems. So i assume it should be fine for you.

@zufa86 i think the blame here for this issue that china gamers are going through is on chinese government for banning/blocking alot of stuff from the west.

@Camilla as i said earlier it was working before the update. Who knows what happened. I will keep checking again in the future if they found a way to fix it or not. I guess PS4 and xbox networks are fine...

Switch isn't officially sold in China you goofs.

Hence the Nvidia Shield with Wii games? Remember?

Of course they didn't check to see if their server host was banned by the communist government of a nation they don't even sell their console in.

When in doubt, blame Nintendo.

@dres I'm reeeeeally bad a typing, sorry. Basically I was asking if there was anything to gain (in say, latency or speed) by switching hosts. Then I asked if what's gained by switching is also worth any extra risks incurred by switching hosts, and what those risks would actually be.

I also kind of put my understanding of the answers sprinkled through the questions making it worse. My understanding at the time being : Although unlikely, Nintendo wouldn't want to be hosted on a server already hosting a competitor in case sensitive information is maliciously leaked or sold.

Thanks for the reply!

What google-based servers? Nintendo's online games are not server-vased, they use P2P.

But it's normal in software development that a few users will encounter bugs that the majority has never seen. They're called edge cases.
The problem is that China has such a huge population that 'a few' can easily mean a (in other contexts) significant number of users.
And since the internet is known to amplify those that scream the loudest - usually people who have a problem to complain about - it's probably blown out of proportion.

I mean, just look at the article. It uses vague and untrustworthy descriptions like 'it appears' or 'believe' and is based on tests of a few normal users - they're not professional testers.
How about sticking to the facts instead of making wild assumptions?
Note that even my post is only based on assumptions because there is no reliable data to prove or disprove these alleged problems at this time.
That's what you get when you spread wild guesses instead of hard facts.

@shani
But Nintendo's Online Service and their other services like e-shop are hosted on Google servers. Only the actual online gaming is P2P based.

And the Online Service could easily disrupt their sessions, if it is blocked in China.

@J_C
Ok, now I understand.

I do not think that Nintendo will gain mutch by switching from Google to either MS or Amazon. I think they offer similar services and qualities.

Also, my guess is that Nintendo's services are hosted on Linux servers, and I think that Google and Amazon is better in that area than MS, even if they also offer Linux hosting as well.

I think the really big companies with very specific needs and specialized requirements will use Linux, and go to either Amazon or Google for their hosting. While smaller and medium sized businesses with lesser requirements would consider Microsoft Azure as well.

Although there are some really big enterprise companies already using MS Azure, so my assumption aren't really logical at all

Is this article referring to mainland China? That would be impossible since the Nintendo Switch did not even officially launch there. I think Chinese players may likely be referring to Hong Kong and Taiwan, where the Nintendo Switch is officially available, as well as other services like Google.

Just to give some updates on the facts. E-shop is working fine again and so does online backups, without any vpn or manual DNS change. I havent checked on the biggest chunk on nintendo online which is obvious the online gaming.
It is true Nintendo does not sell the switch officially in mainland china but you can buy it in a lot of places and it seems to work fine for downloading games from the e-shop.