Nintendo Switch online services are down worldwide

Nintendo’s network services are currently down across the globe, likely due to increased demand as people stay at home in a bid to counter the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

With many nations currently advising citizens to practice social distancing and work at home where possible in a bid to limit the spread of COVID-19, online entertainment networks including gaming services are experiencing a surge in usage.

All of Nintendo’s network services, including eShop, appear to be down worldwide – at the time of publication they’re unavailable in Japan, the US and Europe. VGC has contacted Nintendo for comment.

“Unable to connect to the network service,” reads the US online service status page. “Please try again later. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

Update 2.50pm GMT: In the past hour Nintendo of Japan has tweeted to apologise for the ongoing network issues.

“We are still working on the recovery process, but it will take some time to resolve it,” the company said. “We are very sorry, but please wait for a while.”

Update 7pm GMT: Nintendo says all network services are now operating normally following the disruption.

Original story continues: Nintendo Switch Online has over 15 million paying members, the platform holder said in January.

It represents a significant portion of the console’s user base – Nintendo also said Switch shipments have exceeded 52 million units, with sell-through (unit sales by retailers to consumers) totalling some 48 million.

Xbox Live also experienced issues on Sunday, with users unable to sign in and access services normally following increased demand, although Microsoft said the issues were resolved later that day.

According to outage detector website Downdetector, there was a jump in the number of PlayStation Network issues on Monday, but Sony says all services are currently up and running.

Steam also broke its all-time concurrent user record on March 15, when over 20.3 million users signed into the service, while Activision’s free-to-play Call of Duty Warzone has attracted more than 15 million players since releasing on March 10, reportedly making it the fastest growing non-mobile game of all time.