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The Nintendo eShop has gone into a temporary maintenance mode in Russia, preventing sales on the platform, due to issues processing payments in rubles (via The Verge).
The company addressed the issue via a statement on the Russian version of its website, a Google translated version of which reads as follows:
“Due to the fact that the payment service used in Nintendo eShop has suspended the processing of payments in rubles, Nintendo eShop in Russia is temporarily placed into maintenance mode. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.”
Nintendo’s suspension of sales in Russia might have been somewhat accidental, but companies from across the games industry have been eager to distance themselves from Russia, following president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Most recently, both Activision Blizzard and Epic Games have suspended sales of their games in the country, in direct protest of the invasion – with Activision Blizzard also doubling its employees’ donations to organisations providing immediate relief in the region, and has raised $300,000 so far.
They’re hardly alone in this either – the growing list of companies ending sales in Russia include EA (who also removed Russian teams from their FIFA and NFL titles), CD Projekt (who has suspended not only sales of their own games, but all sales on GOG.com) and Microsoft.
These moves come after the Ukrainian deputy prime minister penned an open letter gaming companies, calling on them to “temporarily block all Russian and Belorussian accounts, temporarily stop the participation of Russian and Belorussian teams and gamers in all international esports events and cancel all international events holding on the territory of Russia and Belarus.”
