Online services for the Nintendo Switch will no longer be available to Chinese owners after March of 2026
The main thrust of the article, for those who didn’t click through:
It’s not known for sure why this decision has been made, though unconfirmed sources highlighed by Chinese Nintendo state that the online service in China had been run by a long-time parter (sic) of Nintendo. However, unspecified changes in the way that the partner conducts its business means that it can no longer offer its services to Tencent Nintendo Switch.
eShop purchases cease on March 31, 2026, while code redemption and ALL remaining online services cease on May 15, 2026.
I’m specifically posting this as a heads up to any Splatoon players who live in China, in that Splatoon 2 and Splatoon 3 will no longer be playable online after the 2026 deadline.
I glanced over it and panicked it was for everyone;-;
Remember, nothing happened in Inkopolis square 1989
“Fuck you, China” - Nintendo, apparently.
Okay, now how do we triangulate this with the release of the Switch 2?
VPN?
Edit: btw guys im not chinese. Im basically wondering if someone in china could just use a vpn to get around these things.
From the current news at least, it won’t affect current Splatoon players in China - you can’t play Splatoon on the Tencent Switch. All the CN players you see are using an overseas Switch with a VPN-like app to connect to foreign servers.
Pretty sure splatoon isn’t even on the list of Chinese government approved games though. They don’t let their citizens have much freedom 
. Online multiplayer games probably too much information for Chinese authorities to let it slide.
No worries. This termination only applies to Tencent x Nintendo Switch and eShop. Only games published by Tencent x Nintendo are using this online service. It is separated from the global network. And Splatoon 2 & 3 haven’t been approved by Beijing government.
Currently all Chinese players that play Splatoon online are using international version of hardware and software.
But wait didn’t Nintendo say that the switch 2 was going to be compatible with switch game cartridges so Splatoon won’t die
Well tbh 2026, by then the new switch will have dropped and we don’t know if they’ll still continue to provide support for the switch
Pretty sure it was more like “Fuck you, Nintendo” - China. China is EXTREMELY strict with regulations for this stuff. Nintendo absolutely wants to sell their stuff there I assure you, it’s a huge market, but it’s just super hard to.
And why is Nintendo instantly the bad one again?
There’s no confirmed reason on why they’re doing this. The only sources we have are unconfirmed, but they say the network provider that was responsible for key functions of the eShop and Online changed the way they do business and can’t provide their services any longer.
Sure, as I said, nothing is confirmed, but the only source we have says that Nintendo and Tencent are forced to do this by the network provider
We probably don’t. Reading a bit more into this, most sources specify this news affects the Tencent Nintendo Switch, so in other words, the very restricted one that was made specifically for the Chinese market and is estimated to have sold only a fraction of the units that the imported one (i.e. the same model we see anywhere outside of China) did even in the market it was made for.
Make no mistake, we’re heading towards Switch 2, I just don’t think this specific event has a direct connection to it.
Edit because I’m not fully happy with my earlier phrasing: There just seems to be more going on with the decision to end the online service in this case than the upcoming release of Switch 2 given that nowhere else is stopping online service at this point.
The HK eShop is already available without VPN. The Chinese Switch was a flop because Tencent and Nintendo had lots of disputes on revenue split and platform operation.
There are a LOT of Chinese players on Splatoon and if you know the community it’s easy to spot them with the nicknames. Likely they’re already on some sort of VPN and has a HK / Japanese version of switch since I don’t think Splatoon is available on the mainland version switch.
There’s a gaming specific sort of VPN you can use in China that works really well. I use UU加速器. I don’t know anyone in China that actually uses the Tencent Switch instead of just using an overseas Switch with UU. This is certainly part of why the Tencent Switch is getting shut down.
Good luck getting a VPN in China. Or doing anything on the Internet, for that matter.