Thursday, January 16, 2014

How long can it take to buy some extra servers?

Pokémon Bank has been offline for three weeks now, and we're still waiting for any kind of update, suggesting that it really won't be back any time soon. Now, as far as I know, the problem is that the hardware Nintendo had just didn't do the job. So how hard can it be for a big company like that to just get a better infrastructure and get it working quickly? I know dick all about computers, so maybe I'm just spouting misinformed nonsense, but I would've thought they were going to be ready to at least announce something by now. Unless their preparation for Bank's release was just THAT cataclysmic (as in, none)? *shudders* The worst part is that it's believable coming from Nintendo, who's really only doing the online thing begrudgingly (and it shows in many of their games, Brawl anyone?). Who's in charge of that particular department, Doge?

Edit: I forgot to mention, I'm not terribly worried that it'll never come back online, for the simple reason that the lucky Japanese gamers who managed to get it before it went down still have access to it. It would be a horrible move for Nintendo to keep it accessible only for a few lucky people in one country, especially with how much emphasis they're putting on worldwide releases now.

12 comments:

  1. *Insert obligatory Doge speak comment*
    Now that it's out of the way, I can say that I'm actually starting to worry too, but I'm still very annoyed by those who go as far as posting threats to Nintendo on various social media, so I don't let it show too much. Seriously, as much as Nintendo messed up REAL bad, aren't we supposed to be more civilized than that ?

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    1. I've even seen PETITIONS to shut down Nintendo in America for this. HELLO?

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    2. Well, it's true that the internet overreacts over the stupidest things I guess... Thankfully they have much less power than they think they have.

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  2. It's really more involved than just putting in a few servers. Besides having to put them all up and set up you also gotta power them and cool them, and to do all that infrastructure let alone in a controlled environment is very challenging. Hell if they fucked up TOO royally they would need to add servers off-site. It's hard to say what the hold-up is without knowing the reason for it. That said, if they seriously under-estimated the traffic THAT much, someone royally fucked up somewhere.

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  3. Servers have to be maintainted. Remember when the pokemon dream world, the crappiest utility gamefreak ever put on the net, had to go offline for maintenance every tuesday? If something that unpopular and uninteresting gamers only used as a necessity to get hidden abilities had to be maintained every week, imagine what they'll have to go through when bank comes out. Especially when this is not just one, but entire collections of prized pokemon that players are putting their faith into an external space to not delete forever.

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  4. I heard that Nintendo was in the process of hiring a new IT person, so it is very possible that someone vital to Pokémon Bank got sacked. We'd seriously better get something better than a Celebi with essentially False Swipe for all this trouble. An early Volcanion release just might make us forget about this fiasco. Just saying.

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    1. We're not getting one of the new events early, especially not the one who's slated to go last. I do have something else in mind though, and it's called Contrary Serperior.

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    2. Me want manaphy! MANAPHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

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    3. If we get something extra it's more likely to be another event pokemon, one that is impossible to get outside of those distributions. So on top of Celebi we may get Mew, Jirachi, Deoxys, Manaphy, Darkrai, Shaymin, Arceus, Victini, Keldeo, Meloetta or Genesect

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  5. I guess all that work I did during the Christmas period to get Pokemon from White 2 is being put to waste currently.

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    1. On plus side, people that were delayed or are behind in that regard can play catch-up. Doesn't help you of course but others, *shrugs*

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