I admit that I am a big fan of Nintendo since my childhood. I pretty much own every console they released. However, the actions they have taken last year have made me increasingly disappointed in them, especially with their recent handling with Pokebank. There is absolutely no excuse why this application is not out yet. The worse part of it is that they still continue to leave everyone in the dark considering that they already brought the Nintendo Network servers back up several days ago. Furthermore, Japanese and Korean players were able to download the application before it was taken off, thus giving them an unfair advantage as they can still use the application. Considering that it’s a paid service that I was planning to pay for, I felt that they should have prepared for the increase traffic ahead of time.
Another thing that is also unacceptable is that the hacked Pokémon checker doesn’t even block obviously hacked Pokémon. They should have known about this from the beginning as these tools like Pokegen was already in the wild. To me, they should have at least check for illegal abilities/moves, impossible Effort Values and Individual values since those are the easiest to catch.
As a whole, I don’t think Pokebank will release anytime soon despite rumors saying it will be Tuesday. What I think will happen is that it will get rereleased in Japan and perhaps Korea this month while other areas are left in limbo until several months later (probably in June or even next year) when nobody cares anymore. To me, I feel that Nintendo are not listening to its fans outside of Japan. They outright refuse to get rid of region locks (while the Vita, PS4 and Xbox One doesn’t have any), consider taking monetization away from people who Let’s Play Nintendo Games or even review them (until they reverse that decision) and still refuses to release Flip Note Studio 3D outside of Japan. It’s clear that they don’t care about any of their fans with the Pokebank fiasco that is still going on with absolutely no transparency of what is going on. It’s such a shame because they make a lot of good games that I enjoy. Also, don’t forget that without the fan base Nintendo has now, they wouldn’t be successful as they are now.
As a whole, I think they need to get their act together by releasing Pokebank, issue a formal apology and possibly give some kind of compensation such as extending the trial for 60 days or something. I know that handling the traffic for a service, especially for a popular franchise can be difficult, but Nintendo need to be more transparent and insure the fans that they will release it so that they will continue to support the company. There are consequences for companies who do disservice to its fan base like Capcom, so I hope that they won’t go in that direction.
With that, what do you think about the Pokebank Delay?
While Pokemon is basically the only main game series I play and I’m not that familiar with other Nintendo titles or the company in general, I’m still of course upset about Pokebank’s delay. I’m not THAT frustrated since I’m still enjoying the other features of the game and can get some Pokebank-only pokemon through trading if I really want to, but you’re right that the online battling experience has been brought down since Japanese players use a lot of the strong legendary pokemon from the other games and I can’t. I don’t know much about the hacked pokemon thing – maybe I’ve battled against hacked pokemon and didn’t know it – but that definitely sounds like a problem that should be addressed.
I totally forgot about the region-lock thing; It’s so stupid to keep doing that now that the games have become so worldwide-compatible. And I heard about them cracking down on the Let’s Play videos. So yeah, I do agree that Nintendo needs to shape up in certain areas.
I have been avoiding the online experience for the fact that hacked Pokemon and lengendaries are rampant and that my motivation to breed anything have went down significantly. In fact, I have been playing other games lately while my 3DS have been collecting dust. But I hope someday it will release and don’t end up like a Flipnote 3D. If it only releases in Japan, I may as well get a Japanese 3DS and then don’t buy any more North American releases because it seems that everyone else gets the shaft in Nintendo’s Japan favoritism. But even so, I don’t want to see Nintendo fail for the fact that they make a lot of games that I enjoy and I would like them to succeed. But so far, I feel uneasy.