Nintendo Switch Online Hit By Amazon Web Service Outages

Nintendo should spend their cash reserves to build their own server farm. Relying on Amazon is dangerous.

Nintendo fans are certainly getting their money's worth out of switch online....

@nukatha We can dream

@nukatha Ah yes.

Like Fortnite. And Google. And the Epic Games Store. And Disney +. All services impacted by this outage.

All those companies and services use Amazon servers too. However, not all eggs are in one basket. This isnt the days of Wii Connect that was on a service that went bust.

Heck, if Cloudflare ever goes down, it takes half the internet with it.

You can have your own server farms, but the tech will be owned by someone else. Just how it is. Look at Microsoft with Azure.

I knew Amazon was a hugely profitable company, but I didn't know they had such a high stake in online infrastructure...or even one at all.

What's odd is that I can still access Fortnite (just did a few seconds ago). I guess it's because free to play games don't require/utilize Switch Online? IDK; hopefully this all gets resolved soon.

@dustinprewitt Fortunately the NSO games are not affected, you just can't play online that's all. Playing multiplayer offline with NSO games still works.

The people who wrote these Nintendo Status Updates should know better…anything that precedes the word “but” is meaningless.

@dustinprewitt 😅

Tetris 99 is down.

I need my daily fix.

@dustinprewitt Yup, definitely their fault and definitely not effecting tons of other games and platforms.

I’ve been killin’ it in Knockout City the last hour or two…no problems.

@dustinprewitt what's your point?Sony and Xbox goes down more then Nintendos lol and you can't say user base considering the switch has outsold xbox one and is catch up real fast to the ps4 and the ps5 and series x hasn't sold 90 million + units

@Not_Soos Yeah, they've grown really big in this sector too. Last two years my company worked with AWS to implement backup cloud infrastructure. It's a real nightmare when these systems go down.

Earlier today I tried to have ranked matches in Pokémon Shield, but all I got was an error message regarding the server. This might be the reason.

@Haruki_NLI cloudfare? More like Akamai taking all down...

@nukatha I've been saying this since the WiiU. They might as well. I just like to see them improve their online in a huge way.

Was wondering why multiplayer on MH Rise wasn't working.

I was going to play on my docked Switch...since it's my secondary console...stupid license check doesn't allow me to play. Guess it's back to my Lite.

@nukatha They are probably better off letting Amazon take care of their server needs. Nintendo isn't the greatest at internet stuff.

I was hit hard this morning on a more important matter regarding this outage in that I could not use Parsec to remote in to my workplace PC. It's only just been resolved in the last hour or so - there are far more important sectors being impacted by this outage than Nintendo Switch Online services

I tried to open the eShop, but all that means is that I am not tempted to spend money. Most of my gaming is offline. Animal Crossing and Clubhouse Games both worked perfectly for me.

imagine asking money for servers you don't even have

@HedgehogEngine
The solution is just more servers. I hate the trend toward renting vs. owning in all facets of personal and business life.
If your company owns the servers, you aren't paying some other firm every month for the privilege of operating them, you just pay your electric bill and maintenance guy.
Software-as-a-service should be stopped, and individuals should be encouraged to own their homes instead of renting.
If a board game company owns their own printing equipment, they can just make their games, no need to outsource. If a musician has a cd replicating device or vinyl presser, he is not reliant on a record label. He can print the records, put them in sleeves, and is off to the races.
If a company wants its goods to be produced without ethics violations in China, it should own its factory and run it ethically.
The less you rely on others in your business venture, and in your personal life, the more freedom you have.

So this is why I couldn't play Smash online.

Hope this is fixed by Friday, otherwise the upcoming Tetris 99 event would need to be rescheduled

@nukatha *Every company should spend their cash reserves to build their own server farm. Relying on Amazon is dangerous.

Fixed your comment you're welcome

@CodyMKW *you're
Fixed your mistake. You're welcome.

I think it's time Nintendo uses the billions it's sitting on to create an online infrastructure of its own.

Most companies, even large-scale, use Amazon web services for a variety of features. A lot of other companies are affected by this as well. I'm not sure the extent of what Nintendo ties to AWS, and I hope it's not everything, but this isn't abnormal in the tech industry.

Yah, I couldn't play on my secondary Switch which is a pain when I have to sit in a vehicle waiting a long period of time for my daughter's dance class to be over.

@HedgehogEngine
So you start in key locations, and sloely wean yourself off of AWS.

I started downloading a 20GB game, which is a HUGE amount for me because I do not get very much data each month (here in Australia). It reached 100% of the download and then stopped and paused before saying that the connection was down, so could not continue. Luckily I thought to just tell it to try again and then powered down my Switch. After a few hours I turned it back on and the download completed. Lucky because I could not afford to lose another 20GB if it had to download it all over again… 😅

@Liam_Doolan The servers appear to be coming back online now!

@MarioLinkSamus : While tens of millions are content with paying for what was previously (mostly) free?

@nukatha I don't think you know much about AWS.

I was wondering what was going on -_-

More like Nintendo dontwork amiright?

So not only is the service absolute garbage...but it can't even stay up reliably.

Again...is the full package really worth sixty a year?

@RabidCanuck I was thinking the same thing

Could go multi cloud with Azure and AWS/GCP but can be a large overhead having a cross skilled workforce. Another big player you’ve probably never heard of is Akamai, half the internets behind their CDN and/or use their DNS services so if they have issues it’d hurt. Happened quite recently and a lot of major sites were affect including Argos, Boots, major banks etc

This affected my workplace slightly as well. Was wondering where the problem laid lol

With Amazon hosting half the internet that's hardly a surprise.

Github had issues some time ago too
(not sure if they're using AmznServers)

Yup. AWS took down a lot of people. Nintendo is just the tip of the iceberg.

@HedgehogEngine
So you build out your own to cover the baseline, and pay some cloud provider for the overflow.
Ongoing maintenance and operation of a server facility is, by definition, less expensive than AWS, since AWS makes a profit from selling time on their servers.
Also, idling servers can always just use their processing time for science or blockchain things.
I expect you're dramatically overestimating the ongoing maintenance and operations costs.
This is Nintendo, it is clear they don't want a top-tier online experience anyways.

Do you only get to buy the apologies-pack after the inconvenience-pack has run out of credit?

Wondering what happened last night. Well, not much to say here other than "classic Nintendo".

@nukatha Only Microsoft has their own network infrastructure (Azure) which is big enough for global gameplay for millions of users. Even PSN uses AWS.

And please remember XBOX is only a very small portion of what Microsoft does.