The Japanese Nintendo website has confirmed (whether Western accounts were affected was not specified) that an astonishing amount of Nintendo accounts have been compromised, prompting Nintendo to disable logins performed via a Nintendo Network ID (NNID) and forcing all users to reset their passwords.

Nintendo noted that the login IDs and passwords of as many as 160,000 accounts have been obtained illegally, with user’s nicknames, date of birth, region and email addresses possibly now being in the hands of the pilferers.

Its been suggested that fraudulent purchases may have been made, but credit card numbers were noted to not be visible, hopefully ensuring consumers at least some relief.

Nintendo has recommended that all consumers utilize two-factor authentication and have also disabled logging in via an NNID.

Those affected by the incident will be contacted through email and the company has reset the passwords for all accounts, they also requested that users not enter the same password for obvious reasons.

Nintendo concluded their statement by delivering a generic corporate apology and vowing to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Some may be relieved to know Nintendo Japan actually bothered to report the hacking unlike its Western counterpart, and that the devastation was not as catastrophic as Sony’s infamous outage.