Nintendo's Account Breach Was Actually Worse Than Previously Thought

Back in April, Nintendo investigated and ultimately revealed that yes, there had been a serious account breach of about 160,000 accounts. Those unauthorized logins potentially had access to information like nicknames, birthdays, and email addresses, among other things. There were also reports of unauthorized purchases using linked payment methods. According to a new update from Nintendo, however, the number of affected accounts actually totals closer to 300,000 -- nearly double the original number.

The update, which can be viewed over on Nintendo's Japanese support site, notes that the company discovered an additional 140,000 accounts that were affected by the breach in the course of its continued investigation into the matter. Exactly when they might have been accessed, and why they were not discovered in the initial sweep, remains unclear. While 300,000 is certainly a large number, the update from Nintendo notes that it accounts for less than 1% of global Nintendo Network IDs.

"While we continue to investigate, we would like to reassure users that there is currently no evidence pointing toward a breach of Nintendo's databases, servers or services," Nintendo said of the unauthorized logins back in April. "As one action in our ongoing investigation, we are discontinuing the ability to use a Nintendo Network ID to sign in to a Nintendo Account. All other options to sign in to a Nintendo Account remain available."

Additionally, Nintendo suggested at the time that everyone enable two-factor verification for their Nintendo accounts, which is relatively easy enough to do. Even if whatever cause of the unauthorized logins has been resolved, it's still a smart decision to enable going forward so as to prevent any potential unauthorized logins in the future.

The Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite are currently available wherever such things are sold, assuming you can find either of them in stock. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Nintendo right here.

Were you affected by the Nintendo security breach? What do you think of how Nintendo has handled this? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!

[H/T Eurogamer]