Nintendo Direct breaks the internet? Twitter and YouTube go down in wake of Nintendo reveals
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Twitter and YouTube both went down on Feb. 8, suspiciously close to the Nintendo Direct livestream.
For Nintendo fans, Feb. 8 was a day of joy and excitement as the latest Nintendo Direct unveiled dozens of new and returning games for the Nintendo Switch. But almost in sync with the start of the Direct, Twitter went down. The platform, which would have been awash with gamers discussing the latest releases, was instead barely accessible.
The Twitter downtime seems to be related to the roll out of the new 4,000 character limit for Twitter Blue subscribers. The initial launch seems to have caused severe issues on the traditional short-form site, right in line with the start of the Nintendo Direct stream.
However, other sources suggest that the downtime might have been tied to the recent announcement that Twitter was turning off its free API access. The site seemingly hadn’t realized that first-party tweets were also tied to this API.
YouTube down because of Nintendo Direct?
An hour or so later, just after the Nintendo Direct had ended, YouTube’s front page appeared to go down. This seems more directly related to Nintendo Direct, millions rush to watch the stream. The Nintendo Direct stream itself currently has 2.2 million views already, and each of the individual trailers is pushing towards six digits at a rapid rate.
The downtime is reportedly attributed to a hard quota limit for YouTube’s homepage. Allegedly, so many requests were being made to the front page, that the site effectively stopped showing up. However, direct access to videos and streams wasn’t affected. With the Nintendo Direct timing, and a flood of trailers, it’s hypothetically possible that this outage was related to the viewership of the Direct.
Overall, it's a bizarre series of tech issues that are only coincidentally linked to Nintendo Direct. But as a whole, it shows that when Nintendo makes moves, the whole world feels it!
Stay tuned to Esports.gg for our coverage of the Nintendo Direct.
Michael Hassall
Editor | Twitter @hoffasaurusx
Michael is a UK-based content creator who caught the esports bug in 2010, but took eight years to figure out he should write about it. Throwing away a promising career in marketing and PR, he now specialises in MOBAs, covering League of Legends, Dota 2, and esports in general since 2019. When not glued to tournaments taking place on the other side of the globe, he spends time nurturing an unhealthy addiction to MMOs and gacha games.