Nintendo of America has announced that the Pokémon Bank app has returned to the eShop in “certain asian countries.” The software also includes an update that mitigates the issues that caused server overloads in late December.
No announcement has yet been made about the software rollout in other territories, including North America. Pokémon Bank and the Poké Transporter software were originally due on December 27, 2013. Following Wii U and 3DS online service outages days before, Nintendo made the decision to pull the software from Asian territories and delay release elsewhere.
We expect that the offer for a free Celebi for those that download in the first month will go into effect once the software is live in North America. The Pokémon Bank software carries a $4.99 annual subscription and will allow players to store more Pokémon than otherwise possible. The Poké Transporter service will allow users to import creatures from previous generations.
[Source: @NintendoAmerica (1), (2), Serebii.net]
Our Take
The news that comes by way of Serebii.net suggests that there was a significant bug in the original release of the software that contributed to the server problems facing Nintendo over the holidays. This could explain why it took almost a month to re-release the applications.
Nintendo suggests that news of the Pokémon Bank’s North American release will come by way of social media. We’ll report back as soon as we know more.