Pokémon Bank Release Date: December 27th

[Teapot]

As you may know, Game Freak revealed a service with Pokémon X and Y that allows players to store and retrieve their Pokémon from a cloud service in the internet. This allows Pokémon to be easily transferred to and from Pokémon X and Y in bulk, without having to have two systems and trade. The Bank app also has advanced sorting and filtering features to easily sort through up to 3000 Pokémon from many different Pokémon games.

Nintendo today have confirmed Bank's release date on the 3DS eShop: December 27th. They've also launched a special site for it with lots more information, which can be found here, and released quite a nice trailer showing it and Poké Transporter off.

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Finally, pricing has been confirmed: $4.99 USD / €4,99 EUR / £4.49 GBP per year. If you first download Bank before February 1st, 2014, you will be issued with a pass to use the service for free for 30 days, starting when you first launch Pokémon Bank.

Bank will also be released with a companion app called Poké Transporter which allows you to transfer Pokémon from Pokémon Black, White, Black 2, or White 2 into Bank, which then can be downloaded into Pokémon X and Y. It will be free to download from the eShop and use your Bank subscription to function.

 

[ShinyZekrom009]

Ah, I've been waiting for this! Looks great, I'm seriously considering doing a mass immigration of Pokemon from my previous games...after completing the Pokedex in Black 2, of course, because of Shiny Charm.

 

[Mr.Munchlax]

Bad news: Due to problems from the early release in Japan yesterday, they pulled Pokémon Bank & Poké Transporter from the Nintendo eShop and they delayed the release date to TBD (To Be Decided).

I'm personally guessing this means we won't see it until halfway through 2014 at the earliest

 

[Teapot]

Well, that's truly shitty. Hopefully the delay isn't too long :/

 

[Magpie]

I hope the delay isn't too long, I was really looking forward to downloading it tomorrow :/

 

[Toastie]

Bad news: Due to problems from the early release in Japan yesterday, they pulled Pokémon Bank & Poké Transporter from the Nintendo eShop and they delayed the release date to TBD (To Be Decided).

I'm personally guessing this means we won't see it until halfway through 2014 at the earliest

As far as I know, the Japanese release is working fine. It seems that the server overloads Nintendo is experiencing with the eShop are at least partly due to the influx of people trying to download Pokémon Bank, and they are hoping that temporarily removing it will reduce the strain. I'm sure we'll see it released in the next week, if not earlier.

 

[Teapot]

I've been digging around, and I can't see anywhere reporting that the release date for Bank has changed - including Bank's own website. I do see the Japanese Bank got overloaded and needed to be temporarily taken offline, but that doesn't seem to have caused the date for the international release to have changed?

@Mr.Munchlax, where's your source for this information?

 

[Toastie]

I've been digging around, and I can't see anywhere reporting that the release date for Bank has changed - including Bank's own website. I do see the Japanese Bank got overloaded and needed to be temporarily taken offline, but that doesn't seem to have caused the date for the international release to have changed?

Unfortunately, there may have to be a delay on Pokémon Bank internationally, because if a combination of Christmas and its Japanese release overloaded eShop, think what the international release could do!

 

[Mr.Munchlax]

I found it on Serebii this morning:
"Nintendo have announced that they have temporarily removed Pokémon Bank from the Nintendo 3DS eShop. This is following the massive influx of users on both Nintendo 3DS and Wii U coming on Christmas, plus the addition of Pokémon Bank causing the Nintendo Network to drive to a halt. This means users cannot download it anymore and currently cannot access the features of the game.. It is currently unclear when Pokémon Bank and Poké Transporter will return, or if the western release is delayed. They have made it clear that the 30 day trial for previously registered users will restart when it returns.
Edit @ 13:14: Pokémon Bank is now listed with a release of TBD (To Be Decided) on the North American and European eShops. We'll bring details on this as soon as we can"

 

[Demelza]

I found it on Serebii this morning:
"Nintendo have announced that they have temporarily removed Pokémon Bank from the Nintendo 3DS eShop. This is following the massive influx of users on both Nintendo 3DS and Wii U coming on Christmas, plus the addition of Pokémon Bank causing the Nintendo Network to drive to a halt. This means users cannot download it anymore and currently cannot access the features of the game.. It is currently unclear when Pokémon Bank and Poké Transporter will return, or if the western release is delayed. They have made it clear that the 30 day trial for previously registered users will restart when it returns.
Edit @ 13:14: Pokémon Bank is now listed with a release of TBD (To Be Decided) on the North American and European eShops. We'll bring details on this as soon as we can"

That doesn't outright state the service has been delayed through. I guess in Japan perhaps you could consider it a delay for those who hadn't already downloaded it and now that it's off the eShop, but for Europe and the US it might not be so. Or at the very least they'll delay it to tomorrow night or perhaps the day after, we won't be waiting weeks or months for it to return when it's a perfectly working title. The servers just need money thrown at them.

 

[Mr.Munchlax]

That doesn't outright state the service has been delayed through. I guess in Japan perhaps you could consider it a delay for those who hadn't already downloaded it and now that it's off the eShop, but for Europe and the US it might not be so. Or at the very least they'll delay it to tomorrow night or perhaps the day after, we won't be waiting weeks or months for it to return when it's a perfectly working title. The servers just need money thrown at them.

True, but I managed to briefly get on the Nintendo e-shop myself and saw that the release date was changed to TBD. I'll try to tak a picture for proof if you don't believe me

 

[Demelza]

True, but I managed to briefly get on the Nintendo e-shop myself and saw that the release date was changed to TBD. I'll try to tak a picture for proof if you don't believe me

Not a case of not believing you, I completely do and had seen the TBD myself, but that wasn't to say it was going to miss its release date or be delayed longer than a few days.

Nintendo have officially spoken now and confirmed a delay, for how long is anyone's guess, but I'd assume only a day or two (if that) so they can solve the server issues.

 

[Mr.Munchlax]

Not a case of not believing you, I completely do and had seen the TBD myself, but that wasn't to say it was going to miss its release date or be delayed longer than a few days.

Nintendo have officially spoken now and confirmed a delay, for how long is anyone's guess, but I'd assume only a day or two (if that) so they can solve the server issues.

Wow, you're more optimistic than most of the people are at Serebii forums. They're are tons of them on pessimistic fits of rage right now (I even regrettably that I spatted a few times over there)

 

[Teapot]

Wow, you're more optimistic than most of the people are at Serebii forums. They're are tons of them on pessimistic fits of rage right now (I even regrettably that I spatted a few times over there)

I'm not surprised, none of them have ever had any experience of deploying large-scale server systems. Hell, nor have I, but I live with someone who is part of it regularly. I'll compose a more detailed post about what I see to be the problem later, but the short answer is that the required fixes (more servers) shouldn't take more than a few days to deploy.

Also, the Serebii forums are always wrong. Worth remembering.