Sega HQ Tokyo, Japan - June 28, 2002 3:00 PM JST June 28 / 11:00 PM PT June 27
Sega President Hideki Sato sat in his chair. He and Yuji Naka had a meeting with Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto later today, something about collaborating on a Nintendo property. His train of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come in” Sato exclaimed. Coming in was one the Nintendo Netcast technical engineers. “Sato-san.” The engineer bowed “We have a major problem with Nintendo Netcast” “What do you mean a problem with Nintendo Netcast? I’m fully aware of Nintendo’s fighting game that is releasing today. We have already prepared for this.” Hideki Sato felt slightly frustrated that the technical team would bother him with this. “It’s worse than we initially thought. The servers for Super Smash Brothers are all down. There are simply too many players trying to access the servers.” The engineer said nervously. “Alright so how many are trying to access the servers?” Hideki Sato asked. “Before the servers were overloaded there were at least 40,000 players attempting to access the servers.” The answer shocked Hideki Sato, that number was astounding for a single day. He expected those kind of numbers when Phantasy Star launched not Super Smash Brothers. “And what about the core servers for managing accounts? Are they still up?” Hideki Sato asked. “They’re still up but they’re close to being overloaded. I request your permission to change some of the lesser used servers to Smash Brother servers.” The technician asked. “Permission granted. Anything else?” Hideki Sato asked “You may want to contact Nintendo of America later, Super Smash Bros is launching there today as well and if what’s happening in Japan is any indication. It will be much worse in North America.” The technician said. “Thank you for the warning.” Hideki Sato thanked the technician as the technician bowed and quietly left his office.
“We apologize for any connection issues players are facing. We are working hard to resolve these connection issues as soon as possible” - Press Statement by Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, June 28 2002
Nintendo of America HQ Redmond, Washington USA - June 28 9:00 AM PT / 1:00 AM JST June 29
Peter Moore was panicking “Are you sure there’s really nothing we can do about it?” Moore asked. “Unless we take an entire game offline, we’ve already taken servers from Half-Life and Sonic Adventure 2 but people trying to play those games will start to have trouble connecting once more people get off school and work. It’s also a Friday so the entire weekend will likely be plagued with connection issues.” The technician responded. Peter Moore sighed, this was going to be quite a weekend.
“Mam listen please it’s not your internet that’s the problem. It’s not on our end you need to call Nintendo.” - A Comcast Customer Service Employee trying to explain things to an Angry Mother, June 28 2002
“I undertand Mam and I but we’re experiencing high traffic today. We’re doing everything we can to” - A Nintendo Customer Service Employee before being interrupted by an Angry Mother, June 28 2002
Nintendo has formally announced that their online service Nintendo Netcast now has over one million users. The culprit is Nintendo’s recent game, Super Smash Brothers Melee which has caused a massive spike in new accounts created. Despite this celebration Nintendo also apologized for the connection issues plaguing players who attempt to connect to Nintendo Netcast. - Excerpt from IGN
Nintendude87: So anyone else unlock Falco yet?
1337H@Xx: nah 100 man melee is a bitch
Sonicfan1991: Try using DKs down b. Just be careful during the last 20 so opponents.
1337H@Xx: k
Justkaleb: Who is Sakura? Game says she’s from Sakura Wars?
Sonicfan1991: Sakura Wars is a Japanese only Sega Saturn game.
Nintendude87: Yeah. I remember seeing the trailer for the remake at E3.
Justkaleb: Oh Yah. Now I remember! Btw where’s Pikafan?
Nintendude87: Dunno. He should be out of school by now. If I remember his time zone right.
Pikafan: Hey guyz just got back from the store mom made me help put groceries away.
Pikafan: Anyway I got Melee we all ready to play?
Justkaleb: Can’t for some reason.
1337H@Xx: yea can’t even play quake. findin a match takes forever
Nintendude87: I’ve had one online match after trying multiple times. It was a Kirby that just ran away and taunted the whole time.
Pikafan: Wait really? What are you guys doing then?
Justkaleb: Just talking and trying to unlock all the characters.
Pikafan: Who’s the secret characters?
Sonicfan1991: Wario, Shadow, Marth, Falco, Sakura. At least that’s who I got so far.
Pikafan: Who the hell r Marth and Sakura?
Justkaleb: They’re from Japan only games.
Pikafan: Kewl. Any new Pokemon?
Nintendude: Mewtwo and Pichu
Pikafan: MEWTWO! Awesome1 How u get him?
Nintendude: Play 20 hours of vs battles
Sonicfan1991: How you know that? You unlock him?
Nintendude87: No. Just looking it up online.
Pikafan: That’s gunna take forever! Guess I’ll just have to leave my game on all night.
1337H@Xx: guyz I herd u get tails by getting 10 kos in cruel smash
Justkaleb: That’s impossible.
Nintendude87: Also not true.
1337H@Xx: u don’t know that
Sonicfan1991: Whatever you need to tell yourself to help you sleep at night.
Pikafan: Alright guys I guess I’ll just go play with my little brother. I gotta get the good controller before he does.
Justkaleb: See you man.
Nintendude87: We’ll all play some other time. Not sure when though.
Nintendo of America HQ Redmond, Washington USA - June 29 4:00 PM PT
Peter Moore sighed, even after taking preemptive measures things were still bad into Saturday. People we’re still having trouble connecting in Super Smash Brothers, Customer Service phones were ringing off the hook, it was reportedly taking almost a half hour for new users to make accounts, he couldn’t imagine things getting any worse. A technician came in his office. “Moore I got good news and bad news.” The technician said. “Give it to me straight.” Peter Moore tried to look composed but his frustration showed. “Well good news is Nintendo Netcast has hit over one million individual users. Bad news is the massive influx of new accounts has completely shut down the servers. Nintendo Netcast is effectively shut down, at least here in North America.” “And when will user account creation be back online?” Moore asked. “Likely later within the day around 8 or 9 but it could potentially shut down again tomorrow during peak hours if we don’t do anything, but I do have a saving grace from Japan. Apparently Sega is working on creating a special web page for Nintendo Netcast users to manage and create new accounts on. They didn’t say when it would be up though I was told by Monday at least.” The technician responded. “I don’t care anymore shut down a game that nobody plays, but keep me updated and bring that game back online as soon as possible.” Peter Moore said. “Right away sir.” The technician said, leaving the room. Peter Moore rubbed his forehead sighing. He thought Bernie Stolar was a pain but this was a whole new level.
“Why can’t I get a connection?” The Innocent Bomberman Online Players just trying to play their game.
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On June 28 2002 Super Smash Bros Melee released in both Japan and North America and it was a disaster. This was the first Super Smash Brothers game to have an online vs mode and Nintendo was woefully unprepared.
This actually wasn’t anything new. When Nintendo Netcast first launched in November 2001 there were still a few hiccups. Some games were unexpectedly high in traffic compared to others leading to slight connection issues, but these were fixed very quickly as servers were reallocated based on their active playerbase. But for Smash Bros things didn’t go so well.
This was the first Super Smash Brothers game to have an online vs mode and Nintendo was woefully unprepared. When Super Smash Brother Melee first launched on June 28 2002 almost immediately the servers were under extremely high traffic. While there was nothing wrong with actually playing the game online, trying to find a match in Solo Melee would take anywhere from 5 Minutes to a half an hour and in Group Melee players found themselves waiting to connect to their friends for up to 12 Minutes. Nintendo and Internet Service Providers were flooded with calls about the connection issues. In fact there was such high traffic that some servers had to be shut down so that they didn’t overheat.
So why did Melee have these connection issues? Simply put there weren’t enough servers. You see in order to keep the cost of running Nintendo Netcast down Nintendo and Sega only had as many servers as they thought they needed. While they did add more servers for when Super Smash Bros Melee launched it simply wasn’t enough, there were just too many players trying to connect at the same time.
And it wasn’t just Super Smash Bros Melee having connection issues but Melee had a ripple effect that affected nearly every aspect of Nintendo Netcast. Nintendo and Sega scrambled to fix Melee’s connection issues. This meant the reallocation servers from more popular games like Quake 3 and Half-Life leading to connection issues for people trying to play those games and while it’s never been confirmed, it’s been reported that Bomberman Online was completely shut down for almost three days straight because of the server reallocation. In fact so many people that bought Super Smash Bros where making new accounts that the servers for account creation went offline due to the high traffic.
This event was a disaster for Nintendo and Sega, even though they had fixed the issues within the week the PR damage was already done and their competitor Microsoft capitalized on this event by increasing their ads for X-Box Live. For their next big online game Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II, Nintendo and Sega were better far better prepared the launch of that game went off flawlessly.
Excerpt from Gaming Historian Youtube Channel - History of Nintendo Netcast, September 2018