When they had the special BestBuy only downloads for Animal Crossing New Leaf I drove 25 miles (one way) to my nearest BB (didn't know about the router "trick" until the last one) with my 3DS in and was unable to connect. The gaming "expert" said the Nintendo kiosk had recently been overhauled while he was on vacation & suspected something wasn't connected correctly. He said he'd put a call in.

(FYI: there are reps from Nintendo that service the NintendoZone hotspots & employees at any location have ZERO access to even re-boot the routers. All they can do us turn the system off & back on but essentially all that does it turn off/on the kiosk monitors).

I went back a week later to try the next exclusive download. It worked! (BONUS: on the 1st trip, when Hubby saw the 3DS XL screen size (in person) compared to my 3DS he bought me the XL!! Aww). Two weeks later the item download did not work. I once again could not conect to the NintendoZone with either the 3DS or 3DS XL unit.

Several BestBuy employees came over to see what I was up to (I'd asked two for help) & all said it was very intermittent for them too. (I think the fact a hip, young-looking 45-yr old Nana of 8 with a serious Animal Crossing New Leaf addiction had them all curious, lol!) While they were sympathetic, nobody seemed able to actually do anything! I asked for a Nintendo contact number. I sat in the corner & called Nintendo! The very nice man I spoke with took all the info iincluding store address, phone # & name/direct contact for 2 BestBuy employees (they offered it) & a very detailed description of the problem. It's still not working. (Side note: That day there happened to be a post on the official Nintendo AC:NL Facebook page outlining how to set your home router to 'Bestbuy' & download items. I mentioned this to the Nintendo CS guy. He said he didn't think that would work. I told him I'd been skeptical too but it was posted on THEIR official page. Hmm. Interesting they didn't seem to know about this.)

Three weeks ago I was again in the neighboring larger town & tried BestBuy. Nope, no luck. I did get a couple StreetPass connections the previous visit & one on this visit but I'm assuming that was directly from other customers or employees 3DS units. I stopped at one of the town's 3 McDonald's & it connected right away. I was able to receive the downloadable item without issue (I was unaware Starbucks or BN had Nintendo Zone but have been inside several Starbucks over the past 3 months without ever receiving a StreetPass. When I (just now) look up Nintendo Zone locations in my area, in addition to BestBuy, Starbucks, McDonald's & BN stores it also lists the local area Home Depots, AT&T retail stores & the FedEx store!).

2 weeks ago I went to my towns only (McDonalds) Nintendo Zone & YEA, it worked fine to download the AC:NL item! However, I did not receive any StreetPass info. (I do regularly receive StreetPass/SpotPass info between my two units. I haven't gotten around to selling my 3DS yet & set up a second town as a "turnip farm" until I do, lol. I did say I'm addicted, right?

So, today I was again in the larger town. I didn't bother with BB. I was inside a Starbucks (no StreetPass info received) and stopped at TWO McDonalds without being able to connect. I then stopped at my town's McD's on my way home and again, no luck connecting. This prompted me to do some searching which led me here.

So, it seems my loca BB's intermittent issue could actually be related to a much larger system wide (At&T) problem. I hope all of the feedback we are posting here actually makes it to somebody that is looking into the issue and can do something to fix it!

I'm happy to continue testing out my local Nintendo Zones if that's necessary. Will somebody please post follow up information to let us know what's being done?

Thanks!

Susi