Nintendo's Japanese website URL will be changing from February 26, 2024 (except some pages, will redirect if using the old URL) Up: NoE changing too

[ggx2ac]

Source (Nintendo's JP Twitter account):


DeepL translation:

Starting tomorrow, February 26 (Monday), the URL (domain) of the Nintendo website will be changed with the exception of some pages due to the improvement of the server environment.
Please be assured that access to the old URL will be automatically forwarded to the new URL.
Thank you for your continued support of the Nintendo website.

The image shows that the URL will change from:

nintendo.co.jp

To:

nintendo.com/jp

Google translation of the fine print in the image says:

*Some pages, such as company information and support pages have not changed from the old URL.

If you're wondering, "Why is this news?"

Think about all the nintendo JP links that have been posted on Install Base, this is so you are aware if you're suddenly seeing a redirect happen when you click on an old URL.

 

[Terrell]

I'm guessing the IR pages will still be at the old URL until further notice.

 

[Hero of Legend]

Just realized this will jeopardize most if not all of the surviving legacy game pages, like N64 old. Oh fuck, I hope those are all archived via Wayback.

 

[Tokuiten]

Not a fan of it, it's a milder form of Sony changing X and O buttons on the PlayStation-controller. Nothing wrong with having .co.jp-urls for your Japanese audience. Ah well.

 

[Joseki]

Not a fan of it, it's a milder form of Sony changing X and O buttons on the PlayStation-controller. Nothing wrong with having .co.jp-urls for your Japanese audience. Ah well.

The japanese eShop is already on a '.com' domain anyway.

 

[Lite_Agent]

Was wondering when they were going to announce that (if at all). Been a few months already that game websites in Japan have been using the nintendo.com domain, and even older websites (like Everyone 1-2-Switch) with the old domain already redirected to nintendo.com/jp.

I'm guessing this is but the first step towards "globalisation" of their web presence, which makes a lot of sense for SEO (and other) purposes.

What I'm really curious to see is whether we're ever going to get a global web eShop. Right now, every region has a different system in place, which is highly inefficient imo. As far as I'm aware, only Australia / New Zealand pull pages directly from the Switch's eShop (Japan used to before they switched to My Nintendo store).

Also, I'm quite surprised/amused they're announcing that on a Sunday of all days? Also, why make the Switch (ha ha ) on February 26th instead of the 1st day of a month? Feels sort of random.

Just realized this will jeopardize most if not all of the surviving legacy game pages, like N64 old. Oh fuck, I hope those are all archived via Wayback.

This shouldn't change anything for those pages. They're not retiring the old domain or anything. At "worst", their URL will redirect to the nintendo.com/jp equivalent, though in all likelihood, nothing will change at all and they stay as they currently are.

 

[Hero of Legend]

Was wondering when they were going to announce that (if at all). Been a few months already that game websites in Japan have been using the nintendo.com domain, and even older websites (like Everyone 1-2-Switch) with the old domain already redirected to nintendo.com/jp.

I'm guessing this is but the first step towards "globalisation" of their web presence, which makes a lot of sense for SEO (and other) purposes.

What I'm really curious to see is whether we're ever going to get a global web eShop. Right now, every region has a different system in place, which is highly inefficient imo. As far as I'm aware, only Australia / New Zealand pull pages directly from the Switch's eShop (Japan used to before they switched to My Nintendo store).

Also, I'm quite surprised/amused they're announcing that on a Sunday of all days? Also, why make the Switch (ha ha ) on February 26th instead of the 1st day of a month? Feels sort of random.


This shouldn't change anything for those pages. They're not retiring the old domain or anything. At "worst", their URL will redirect to the nintendo.com/jp equivalent, though in all likelihood, nothing will change at all and they stay as they currently are.

I dunno, quite a few sites plain don't work anymore but I couldn't tell you the exact reasons. Like the sites of conferences no longer work for some but others still do, even out of order (like an older one works but the year after's doesn't).

 

[Yomi]

任天堂ホームページ

任天堂株式会社のオフィシャルサイト「任天堂ホームページ」です。

www.nintendo.com

"Or please give us more money".

They don't have money for a website I guess. That's such a bad translation from the browser.

 

[SquidEnthusiast]

No wonder Nintendo's profit margins are so high, they don't even budget expenses for website upkeep!

 

[BTB123]

任天堂ホームページ

任天堂株式会社のオフィシャルサイト「任天堂ホームページ」です。

www.nintendo.com

"Or please give us more money".

They don't have money for a website I guess. That's such a bad translation from the browser.

Lol, the translation to German says please search at the top on the Nintendo-Homepage or in the menu at the top.

 

[KtSlime]

Looks like the landing page failed to properly get transferred and doesn't redirect either. Wonder who is in charge.

 

[Lite_Agent]

The one downside to today's change is that when I visit JP website, I'm logged with my NA account instead of the Japanese one due to how Firefox containers work (basically, all nintendo.com link use one container, and nintendo.co.jp another). Can still "switch" (ha ) manually, but it was handy to have it happen automatically.

Looks like the landing page failed to properly get transferred and doesn't redirect either. Wonder who is in charge.

Looks like this was fixed sometime during the day.

My guess is that either someone made a mistake with the redirect, or there was a hicup with DNS propagation (usually takes a few minutes, but there's case where it can take up to 24h).

I dunno, quite a few sites plain don't work anymore but I couldn't tell you the exact reasons. Like the sites of conferences no longer work for some but others still do, even out of order (like an older one works but the year after's doesn't).

It's safe to assume they were taken offline at one point, but that's not related to the domain change. A real shame because there was some really interesting stuff in there (like interviews and the likes).

Old stuff is still online:

Nintendo 64 homepage (with working links to various web pages): https://www.nintendo.co.jp/n01/index.html
Original WarioWare series website: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/n08/azwj/index.html
Wario Land Wii website: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/rwlj/index.html

As expected, they all still use the "old" domain and still work just fine. No URLgeddon (for now ) ^^

 

[ggx2ac]

Nintendo of Europe has tweeted out that they are also changing the URLs of their webpages.

Instead of going to say "nintendo.co.uk", it is changing to "nintendo.com/en-gb/"

Starting 09/04/2024, Nintendo of Europe’s website domains will be updated. Please note that the previous URLs will still function, and will automatically redirect to the new URLs. Thank you for your continued support.

 

[Joseki]

It would be cool if they also unified their web design.

JP, EU and NA have 3 completely different layouts.

 

[KtSlime]

It would be cool if they also unified their web design.

JP, EU and NA have 3 completely different layouts.

It’d suck for the Europeans and Americans losing their jobs, but a unified website definitely feels more international.

 

[Terrell]

It’d suck for the Europeans and Americans losing their jobs, but a unified website definitely feels more international.

No way to say that they'd keep it in Japan for sure, it'll likely come down to whoever they feel does the most efficient job. But the likelihood is that web design and what-have-you will be handled in Japan (I wouldn't be shocked if part or all of this task was folded into Nintendo Systems somehow).

 

[KtSlime]

No way to say that they'd keep it in Japan for sure, it'll likely come down to whoever they feel does the most efficient job. But the likelihood is that web design and what-have-you will be handled in Japan (I wouldn't be shocked if part or all of this task was folded into Nintendo Systems somehow).

It seems pretty uncontroversial to me that the Japanese layout is the superior/more modern one. And yeah, if Nintendo Systems isn't already maintaining the Japanese website, they likely will in the future.

 

[Lite_Agent]

More and more convinced Nintendo is *finally* moving to a global web presence and/or web eShop à la Steam instead of the current system where every region does its own thing (which isn't efficient).

 

[JB2448]

The URL for Nintendo Australia is now https://www.nintendo.com/au/.