Nintendo apologises for festive eShop outage

New Wii U and 3DS owners were unable to purchase digital content for their new machines for much of the Christmas break.

The problems began on Christmas day and persisted for the best part of a week. Nintendo was even forced to postpone the launch of Pokemon Bank and Pokemon Transporter.

A one-time surge in demand” was blamed for the problems.

"We sincerely apologise for this week’s inconsistencies and thank you again for your patience and support,” the platform holder stated. We will share more information about the launch of Pokmon Bank and Pok Transporter as soon as possible.

We do not anticipate any further outages, but will continue to closely monitor the situation.”

It should be noted that Nintendo was far from the only online service to suffer technical problems over Christmas. The PlayStation Network also experienced outages and even the mighty Steam saw its storefront brought to its knees for an extended period following its decision to give away Left 4 Dead 2 for free.