Pokebank Delay

Pokébank Delay refers to the delayed release of the application Pokémon Bank for the Nintendo 3DS. The delay, which lasted over a month, has spawned numerous parody images and catchphrases.

Origin

Pokémon Bank (sometimes shortened to Pokébank) is an application for the Nintendo 3DS downloadable from the eShop. It allows players to put their Pokémon from Pokémon X and Pokémon Y onto a Cloud-based storage system. As well as providing extra storage for up to 3,000 Pokémon, it also allows one to transfer their Pokémon from one game to another. Pokémon Bank also comes with an application known as Poké Transporter, which allows the user to transfer Pokémon from their Generation V games onto Pokémon Bank, so that they can then be put onto Generation VI games. It has a yearly fee of ¥500, $4.99, £4.49 or €4.99.^[1]

The original release date for Pokémon Bank was December 25, 2013 in Japan, and the planned release dates for other regions were December 27 for the Americas and Europe, and December 28 for Australia and New Zealand.^[2] After its release in Japan, the massive amount of people attempting to download it crashed the servers of the Nintendo Network, and the eShop was inaccessible. As a result of the server issues, Nintendo removed Pokémon Bank from the 3DS eShop on December 26, with no re-release date given. Japanese users who had already downloaded it could use it, but it could not be downloaded afterwards.

Pokémon Bank was added back onto the Japanese eShop on January 21, 2014. It was released in Europe, Australia and New Zealand on February 4, and in North America on February 5.

Online Reaction

Users all over the Internet were outraged at Nintendo's inability to foresee the amount of traffic they would get and for completely removing the application from the eShop without giving out any information to the public.

Due to the unprecedented length of the delay (over a month), many have made image macros poking fun at the situation. Usually they involve a picture with the Pokébank logo photoshopped on and a caption about the delay.

Search Interest

References

^[1] Serebii – Pokémon Bank

^[2] Bulbapedia – Pokémon Bank