Nintendo Continues Expansion In Southeast Asia With Official Websites For Malaysia And The Philippines

Well finally. Do people in that region use the Japanese eshop or what?

@BTB20 Most people here use US eshop. And yes, we're also faking the address to evade eshop taxes.

Maxsoft (based in Singapore) is currently the official Nintendo distributor/supplier in SEA (though the games are mostly the US versions so SEA residents use the US eShop more than others). I don't see that changing soon but it's good to know that Nintendo themselves are extending more reach. Though I would really appreciate it if they provide actual support for these regions and not just having a "partner" for distributions of games/products.

For a company that predominantly sells US versions of the games, at least give them the option to actually have an easy access to US customer support especially when it comes to hardware problems, warranty claims, and/or software concerns. Best case scenarios I could think of based on experience (not me but my friends):
-changing the registered email of your Nintendo Account (you need to call Ninty support if you no longer have access to the original email)
-calling Ninty support if you ever lose access to your Animal Crossing data due to broken/lost device so that they could restore it on another Switch.
You can't access these services easily unless you could get a relative or friend in the US to call for you on your behalf.

@Damo broken links for the MY and PH websites. Extra https's there

When Nintendo will open their branch to Indonesia 🇮🇩 ? 😭
Indonesia is also part of South East Asia country.

That's good news. I hope more regions will follow and ultimately we will also get Nintendo shops in more regions as well.
How about one in Ireland wink

@BTB20 US eshop. Same as during the Wii era when Nintendo first started selling digital games.

Though I no longer live in Malaysia I'm very pleased with this news. Something Malaysian Nintendo gamers can appreciate as another step towards more formal support rather than needing to rely on tech repair shops.

However, it is unclear at this time if Nintendo will build on this move by launching the Nintendo eShop in these regions

Really hope that Nintendo will launch the eShop here.. and my neighbour country Indonesia too. No need to import from Maxsoft anymore.

I'm in Singapore and can attest that most Switch players here buy games from the US eShop, and have only seen US dollar-denominated eShop credit for sale here. Physical games from all regions are sold here too. Most of my physical collection are US or UK versions of games. English is widely spoken in the region.

I actually jumped off the PlayStation ecosystem entirely in 2019 and "switched" to Nintendo because the Switch eShop is region-free. Sony makes it a lot harder for PSN users to access foreign stores, and their game selection on the local digital store was pathetic and filled with glaring omissions of indie titles especially.

I'm so much happier being a Nintendo guy. One of the sore points, however, is that NSO subscribers in this region have no official way to buy things like accessory controllers, which only ship within domestic markets. I've had to resort to eBay for all that stuff, which sucks.

Still waiting for Anti-Matter to get an official nintnedo site.<3

I'm glad some of my folks from those regions will finally get a chance to play all that the Switch had offer.

Hopefully they will support the Middle East region.... someday....after a century or more.

@Ammm94 depends if the government will allow it, especially in Afghanistan which won't happen.

Why?

Because.... you know.

@Ammm94 I think that the UAE is probably the most likely to get support, let’s hope at least cuz my relatives lived out there. Gorgeous country. Anyways I hope you’re doing well mate!

The more markets they can get to the better it's for them. I can only see good investments return.

Great!
However...,
When a full support for Latin America?, No support for fix consoles (yes, is still a nightmare with the joycon drift...)..., Games distribution by third parties that sometimes, abuse the price o no total distribution..., And no all Latin American countries have eShop with local currency...

Nintendo India when?

@anoyonmus

I know.

This is why I mentioned middle east instead of south-central Asia (where Afghanistan is located).

@PARK1755

Exactly, and this what Microsoft did. They were late when it comes to supporting the region, but they recently started with UAE and Saudi Arabia support. I am still shocked that they haven't supported UAE yet.

Not all countries in the region have good economies, so they can start with the 6 GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman) or at least the biggest (Saudi Arabia and UAE).

Sony (which is a Japanese company like Nintendo) have support for all GCC countries and other arab countries in the region. Not only website and store, they even release their games with both Arabic text and voice, and have official distributors and repair shops. The also do launch events if they have a new device or something important.

On the other hand, Nintendo 100% ignoring the region. I guess they still have the stereotype of (camels, oil, tents).

But I still have some hope for my country (UAE) to be one of the first countries to be supported in the region.

and Thank you for your kind reply and hope you doing well too.

That's, actually really cool. I'm not used to the philippines being acknowledged with Nintendo anything

Glad to be getting some kind of official presence here in the Philippines. Once we get an official eshop here, its time to say goodbye to my credit card region hopping for deals though.

@boxyguy you're not wrong there. We haven't received any official presence or support from the 3 console market players since like forever. Only Steam and Epic has an officially recognized regional storefront here.

Yes Nintendo, next step is to release the eshop and Switch online in the SEA region, which will cater to the general audiences who isnt as savvy about setting up a Nintendo account to use a different region’s eshop. And please… no more confusing region-locked consoles in the future (looking at you, 3DS).

I hope this leads to something actually meaningful for Nintendo customers in Malaysia and Philippines. The new website has the same information found in other official Nintendo sites...nothing really new to offer.