Well, I hope you had a happy Christmas with all your new games and systems. All was well if you wanted to play offline, or if you didn’t want to download anything. Not so much if you were hoping to buy games or add-ons from the online stores.

Nintendo has taken down the eShop for emergency maintenance. The servers were overloaded on Christmas Day, when Nintendo had an influx of new 3DS and WiiU customers accessing their online services. Now, not everyone had problems connecting - I set up my WiiU early Christmas morning and downloaded a slew of app updates without a hitch - but the problem was widespread enough to make waves on the Internet. The official cause is listed as “traffic overload,” but it’s hard to believe that Nintendo wasn’t prepared for a large spike in traffic...like there is every year on Christmas.

Nintendo of Japan has removed “Pokemon Bank” from the 3DS eShop to help lighten the server load - which kind of ruins its release. But who releases a downloadable title on Christmas Day? Poor planning, Nintendo.

But they’re not the only one with problems. Speaking of server crashes, the Steam store went down on Christmas during one of Valve’s Steam Sales. Not usually a problem, the sales happen regularly - so what gives? Steam was GIVING AWAY copies of Left 4 Dead 2 - by the way, if you haven’t played that yet, where have you been for the past four years? But, Santa has left, and the Steam Store is back up.

The PlayStation Network was also down, except it was Christmas Eve; Sony gamers were unable to connect to the network, so there went multiplayer or downloading content. To their credit though, Sony has PSN up once more, like Steam.

Nintendo has promised that their emergency maintenance will solve the eShop’s problems. We’ll have to take their word for it until the work is done.

By the way, no mention of Xbox Live having any troubles over the holiday. This isn’t a fanboy rejoicing, but maybe everyone else can learn from Microsoft - after all, they’re the only ones who build their own servers and infrastructure.

Japan Marketing Christmas Xbox