June 13, 2025 (Updated 11:45 AM ET) – Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) services experienced widespread outages and connection issues for several hours early Friday morning, leaving players unable to access online features in popular games. The disruption, now largely resolved, has been officially attributed by Nintendo to an external outage impacting their cloud infrastructure provider – widely confirmed to be Google Cloud.
The problems began around 8:00 PM PT Thursday (June 12th) and persisted into the early hours of Friday. Affected users reported being unable to log into the NSO service, experienced frequent disconnections during online play, and found features like cloud saves inaccessible.
Nintendo quickly acknowledged the issue on their official network status page, stating: "We are currently experiencing difficulties with our online services due to an external outage impacting our cloud provider. We are working to resolve the issue. Thank you for your patience." (Nintendo Network Status)
The "external outage" referenced by Nintendo coincided precisely with a major disruption in Google Cloud services globally. Reports flooded Downdetector, and Reuters confirmed a significant Google Cloud outage starting late Thursday. "Google Cloud experienced a major service disruption beginning late Thursday, impacting thousands of users across multiple regions," reported Reuters, citing issues with cloud computing and networking services. (Reuters Report)
Unexpected Impact: Rumored Switch 2 Titles Also Hit
While current Switch titles like Splatoon 3, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons were predictably affected, a surprising twist emerged. Multiple users on gaming forums and social media reported disconnections and server issues specifically while playing unreleased titles widely believed to be tests or demos for the heavily rumored "Nintendo Switch 2".
Frustrated gamers took to Reddit's r/NintendoSwitch2 subreddit, detailing experiences with sudden disconnects in these next-gen titles. One user posted: "Was deep into a session on [unreleased game title redacted] and got booted mid-match. NSO status page shows issues, looks like it's down everywhere." These reports suggest that Nintendo's next-generation console, expected to launch within the next year, is already heavily reliant on the same NSO backend infrastructure currently powered by Google Cloud. (Reddit Discussion)
Service Restored, Questions Remain
By approximately 7:00 AM PT Friday, Nintendo updated its network status page to indicate all services were operating normally again. The Google Cloud outage also appeared to be resolved around the same timeframe.
While service is restored, the incident highlights the increasing dependence of gaming platforms on cloud infrastructure. It also raises intriguing questions about the architecture of Nintendo's next console:
- Cloud Reliance: The apparent impact on unreleased "Switch 2" games confirms NSO's deep integration with cloud services will continue into the next generation.
- Single Point of Failure: The outage underscores the vulnerability of online gaming ecosystems to disruptions in their underlying cloud providers.
- Backend Testing: The visibility of the outage affecting unreleased titles suggests active, live backend testing for the Switch 2 is already underway using the existing NSO framework.
Nintendo has not commented further beyond the initial network status updates and has not officially acknowledged the existence of the Switch 2 or the specific reports regarding its games. However, today's outage serves as a stark reminder that even the future of Nintendo gaming is inextricably linked to the stability of the cloud.
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