Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition Crashes My Nintendo Store

Fans Flock To My Nintendo Store For XC3, Chaos Ensues

The hype is very real for the long-anticipated upcoming Xenoblade Chronicles 3, which launches on July 29th 2022. As with previous titles in the franchise, the game is also getting a special edition, and pre-orders for the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition went live yesterday on June 8th as announced by this Tweet from Nintendo of America.

With the announcement being incredibly short notice and exclusive to the My Nintendo Store, naturally this caused issues with overwhelming demand, but nobody could have predicted quite how severe these issues ended up being. Within the hour, Nintendo of America issued a follow-up Tweet recognising that fans were having issues pre-ordering Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition due to a large number of visitors to the site.

Things continued to get worse. Nine hours later, Nintendo of America posted another reply to this ongoing Twitter thread issuing a further apology for fans who have been unable to pre-order Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition and that they are “continuing to investigate” the issue. Shortly afterwards, they made an announcement that the special edition is going to be made available for purchase at a later date as a result of these issues.

As it turns out, the issue was so severe that the My Nintendo Store was completely unavailable for a period, and as of right now on June 9th the page for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition has been deleted and the link provided in the original Tweet no longer works. Nintendo of America issues one last update warning users of potential issues with making other physical purchases on the My Nintendo Store.

This situation has quickly become a cautionary tale in releasing limited editions without having the infrastructure to support it. Fans quickly voiced their concerns and anger in the replies to these Nintendo of America Tweets. Some pointed out that pre-ordered copies of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition are being resold on sites such as eBay for considerably higher prices than on My Nintendo Store. Others voiced their upset more directly, while some took to posting relevant Xenoblade Chronicles memes that represent their disapproval of Nintendo of America’s handling of the situation.

For more Xenoblade Chronicles content, check out our reviews of Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and Xenoblade Chronicles 2.