Nintendo has been one of the leading companies since the early days of video games, and they clearly aren't going anywhere. Their fun games and beloved characters have won them countless fans, and their family-friendly games mean that parents don't have to worry about what their kids are playing. However, that's not to say that the company is completely clean, as they have been at the center of plenty of shady scandals over the years. From the time they sued Blockbuster for a banal reason to the controversial firing of Allison Rapp, let's take a look at the shady side of Nintendo.
Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00As a company that has been involved with video games since the late 1970s, Nintendo has a
00:05long storied history that could fill several books. As such, the company is liable to have
00:10encountered a controversy or two. This is the shady side of Nintendo.
00:15While price cuts aren't anything new, the 3DS' excessive drop in price mere months after
00:20release had consumers raising their eyebrows. The handheld system initially started at $250,
00:26but five months later it fell to $170, a staggering 32% slash in price. By this point
00:33in the console's lifespan, fewer than 900,000 systems have been sold in the United States.
00:38Given the lack of sales, the drastic price reduction may have been an attempt to attract
00:42reluctant buyers. Expectedly, this major discount following so close to its initial release
00:47was met with criticism. Those who bought the 3DS before the price reduction felt cheated.
00:52Then-Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata released an apology to these early buyers. In his apology,
00:58Iwata acknowledged,
00:59"...never before has Nintendo chosen to issue such a dramatic price drop less than six months
01:03after a system release."
01:05To make amends, those who bought the 3DS before the price cut were given free Game Boy Advance
01:09games through something called the 3DS Ambassador Program, a precursor to the Virtual Console
01:15feature for the 3DS that originally debuted on the Nintendo Wii.
01:20Limited digital releases have garnered Nintendo some negative publicity over the years. Though
01:24the company dabbled with the concept with the free-to-play title Jump Rope Challenge,
01:28the idea of limited-runs releases for their games has not been met with enthusiasm. Eventually,
01:33Jump Rope Challenge was changed to have a permanent spot on the eShop, but it's not
01:37the only game to get the limited-time release treatment.
01:39Super Mario Bros. 35 adds a competitive spin to the classic title in the vein of Tetris
01:46The game is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch Online service, but it's not a permanent fixture.
01:51According to the Nintendo Direct's presentation that revealed it, the game is only playable
01:55from October 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021. Perhaps more significantly, Super Mario 3D All-Stars,
02:02a collection celebrating the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., will also be delisted
02:07from the eShop on March 31, 2021.
02:11Even more shocking is that physical copies of that title will be pulled from physical
02:14retail locations on the same date. Limiting sales for these games could be a tactic to
02:19bolster subscriptions to Nintendo Switch Online, or perhaps the three games included in the
02:23bundle will be resold individually at a higher price point later on. Whatever the reason,
02:29limited availability doesn't seem to sit right with Nintendo fans.
02:32The Nintendo Entertainment System is home to some of gaming's most beloved titles. From
02:37the classic Super Mario Bros. to the original Legend of Zelda, the NES was the first stop
02:41on a lifelong journey of gaming for many video game enthusiasts. When Nintendo announced
02:46in 2016 that it would be launching a mini-version of the NES preloaded with 30 popular titles,
02:51the excitement was off the charts, compounded with the fact that the nostalgic console was
02:55selling for only $60.
02:58Nintendo fans did an impression of Fry when they yelled in unison,
03:00"...Shut up and take my money!"
03:02The problem is, Nintendo didn't seem to want the money, given the lack of NES classics
03:06for sale. Stores didn't receive enough units to meet customer demand. The end result was
03:11that retailers sold out fast and didn't receive new stock for months, making the console nearly
03:15impossible to find without turning to scalpers and the gray market.
03:19Then-Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima released an apology citing production issues
03:24for the NES classic shortages. However, some believed this was an all-intentional design
03:29to drive up customer interest in the console.
03:32Though the Nintendo Switch has been met with rave reviews across the board, the console's
03:36Joy-Con controllers haven't exactly been living up to everyone's expectations. While
03:40some players are lucky not to experience any issues at all, a good number of Joy-Cons suffer
03:45from what has been deemed Joy-Con drift.
03:48What exactly is Joy-Con drift? Basically, it's when the Joy-Con thinks that you've input
03:51a command when you haven't at all. This can result in minor annoyances like cameras acting
03:56wonky for a few seconds. It can also have more drastic effects as well, like sending
04:00characters endlessly running in one direction. This can make some games virtually unplayable.
04:05If Switch owners have the option of sending their janky Joy-Cons in for repair, they have
04:09to pay a shipping cost to do so. A fix also doesn't guarantee the same issue won't resurface
04:15again later on.
04:16Nintendo was dealt a class-action lawsuit in July 2019 as a result of this Joy-Con flaw,
04:21and Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa offered affected Switch owners an apology a year later.
04:28For content creators, navigating copyright law is already a tricky affair. Throw in the
04:32added stress of Nintendo's aggressive restrictions on the usage of its properties, and it's enough
04:37to make most people shy away from streaming or making Nintendo-focused content.
04:41One of the most egregious examples of Nintendo's lack of leniency in this area is the controversial
04:46Nintendo Creators Program. Though the program was promoted as a way for YouTubers to advertise
04:51on videos featuring Nintendo content, they took portions of the profits made from channels
04:56and videos registered in the program. The registration process could also take up to
05:00three days, which could be disadvantageous to reviewers and those posting on deadlines.
05:05Of course, the program only further strained the relationship between Nintendo and YouTubers.
05:10In the end, the Nintendo Creators Program was shut down. Streamers were finally able
05:14to profit from content like Let's Plays or livestreams without Nintendo stepping in to
05:18take a cut.
05:20Amiibo were a brilliant marketing opportunity for Nintendo. Fans could buy figurines of
05:24their favorite characters like Pikachu, Mario, Samus, or even Wii Fit Trainer, and scan them
05:30into their Wii U or 3DS to add extra content and select games. For those new to the world
05:35of Amiibo collecting, it may be hard to believe that these simple toys were the source of
05:39so much stress and heartache for so many fans.
05:42Once the first wave of the Amiibo shipped to stores, there was an apparent lack of availability
05:46for three specific figures in the lineup — Marth, Wii Fit Trainer, and Villager. The second-hand
05:52market went wild. Scalpers were selling rare Amiibo well above the $12.99 market price,
05:58and the trend would only continue as new figurines were released and resold at outrageous
06:03prices on sites like eBay. It was a feeding frenzy.
06:06A year after the initial launch, Nintendo released a statement apologizing for the production
06:16shortages. Eventually, the once-impossibly rare Amiibo were re-released, but memories
06:21of the Amiibo craze were not soon forgotten.
06:24Switch Live has existed since Microsoft's original Xbox. PlayStation Plus debuted on
06:28the PlayStation 3 in 2011. With these two services available to gamers, it only seemed
06:33like a matter of time until Nintendo offered something similar. That comparable online
06:37service came in the form of Nintendo Switch Online.
06:40However, once details of the service were revealed in a Nintendo Direct, consumers openly
06:45questioned whether $20 a year was worth it for a small library of NES titles, limited
06:50cloud saves, and an external phone application for voice chat. Nintendo later added free-to-play
06:55titles such as Tetris 99 and Super Mario Bros. 35 to the service, which helped boost its
07:01value.
07:02It has also continued to support its free classic games offerings, greatly expanding
07:06the library of NES games available to play and adding support for SNES games as well.
07:12Additionally, though still not great, the phone app used for voice chat has expanded
07:16to include features for games like Splatoon 2, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Animal
07:20Crossing New Horizons. Years later, however, Nintendo Switch Online still doesn't provide
07:25a great online multiplayer experience, and lacks the free monthly games Xbox Live and
07:30PlayStation Plus subscribers have grown accustomed to.
07:33Many of the greatest stories are about epic quests for revenge. John Wick and Kill Bill
07:37come to mind as prime examples. The video game world has had its own tale of vengeance
07:41that rocked its foundations. Here's a story that involves both Nintendo and Sony, two
07:46companies that are still major players in the industry to this day.
07:49The drama unfolded at the June 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, where Nintendo was set to
07:55unveil a partnership with Sony and Philips to make a disc-based add-on for its SNES console.
08:00However, when the time came for the announcement, Nintendo revealed that it would be working
08:04solely with Philips on the new project. This surprised just about everyone at CES, including
08:10In retaliation, Sony decided that if Nintendo would go back on the deal it made, it would
08:14beat Nintendo at its own game. Sony bided its time, and transformed the disc-based console
08:20it had worked on with Nintendo into its own killer console. The rest is PlayStation history.
08:25In April 2016, Nintendo fired Alison Rapp, who worked in marketing for Nintendo's Treehouse
08:31team. Her dismissal followed a months-long campaign from trolls and participants in GamerGate
08:36to make her life miserable. Her detractors had been both harassing Rapp personally and
08:40reaching out to Nintendo with numerous complaints.
08:43Why were people rallying to get this member of Nintendo's marketing team fired? Rapp had
08:47used her sizable online following to talk about feminism and adjacent social justice
08:52issues, a common precursor for women facing GamerGate ire. In a statement, Nintendo claimed
08:57that Rapp was fired for holding a second job that clashed with Nintendo's values, and that
09:02her termination had nothing to do with the vocal minority of trolls that seemed to hate
09:06her.
09:07However, Rapp was dubious of the company's claims and said on Twitter,
09:09"...do you think that if the industry wasn't afraid of women, sex positivity, etc., that
09:14the anonymous moonlighting I did would have been a problem?"
09:17Many were quick to criticize the company, describing Nintendo's actions as callous,
09:21among other things.
09:23In the 90s, violence in video games was a large part of the public discourse in the
09:27United States. The thoughts of pixelated guts and gore corrupting America's youth ultimately
09:32led to the Congressional Hearings on Video Game Violence, which took place in 1993. The
09:37controversy was largely centered around Mortal Kombat, which came under the microscope after
09:42a rise of real-life violence occurred during the height of the game's popularity.
09:46As a result, Mortal Kombat and video games as a whole became the scapegoat for an undercurrent
09:51of violence that had supposedly gripped American youth. At the hearings, Nintendo chairman
09:55Howard Lincoln seized an opportunity to draw heat away from his company at the expense
10:00of Nintendo's biggest competitor, Sega. He specifically cited Mortal Kombat and Nintendo's
10:05efforts to censor the original's bloodiest elements in the Super Nintendo version of
10:09the game.
10:10This was clearly a shot at Sega, which did not censor Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis.
10:17Lincoln went even further, painting Sega's controversial game Night Trap as particularly
10:26dangerous to children while stating the title would never be on a Nintendo system. Ironically,
10:31years later, Night Trap launched with little controversy on the Nintendo Switch.
10:36The Wii mostly targeted casual gamers, and for that reason, it played host to a lot of
10:40party games. Some might argue, however, that the console responsible for making these games
10:45popular was the Nintendo 64. Mario Party was the title that put the party game genre
10:50on the map, kicking off a long-running franchise that still gets new entries. However, Mario
10:55Party on the N64 also injured quite a few of Nintendo's fans.
10:59Mario Party's minigames had very simplistic control schemes, sometimes using just a handful
11:04of buttons. A few games tasked players with quickly rotating the control stick to win
11:08the match. To accomplish this, many players placed their palms over the control stick
11:12and moved their hands in a circular motion. Unfortunately, some who employed this tactic
11:17wound up with injuries to their palms.
11:19Once enough players and concerned parents complained, Nintendo was taken to court by
11:23the Attorney General of New York.
11:25Oh, won't somebody please think of the children?
11:30As a remedy, Nintendo settled out of court, paid the attorney fees for the state of New
11:33York, and promised over $80 million to provide padded gloves that affected families could
11:40Nintendo learned its lesson, though, and games that required players to rotate the stick
11:43disappeared from Mario Party for over a decade after that point.
11:48Nintendo wasn't always a titan of the video game industry. In fact, the company had a
11:51rather humble beginning. Starting in 1889 as a toy company, Nintendo decided to begin
11:57producing video games in the late 1970s. Despite being a well-established company before working
12:02on video games, Nintendo partnered with the engineering firm Ikegami Sashinki to manufacture
12:08the hardware for its initial arcade titles.
12:10However, Nintendo had difficulty breaking into the American arcade market with Radar
12:14Scope, only selling one-third of its stock. So it pivoted. The remaining cabinets intended
12:19for Radar Scope were instead remade into the company's first big hit, Donkey Kong, which
12:24had been made by both Nintendo and Ikegami Sashinki. Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto designed
12:30the game, but Ikegami Sashinki employees were the ones who ended up coding it.
12:34Donkey Kong was such a runaway success that Nintendo decided to violate its agreement
12:38with Ikegami Sashinki. The company created 80,000 arcade boards of its own after buying
12:44only 8,000 from Ikegami Sashinki, which was supposed to be its partner. To make matters
12:49worse, Nintendo decided to leave the developer in the dust when it came time to work on Donkey
12:54Kong's follow-up, Donkey Kong Jr.
12:56The company hired a subcontractor to reverse-engineer Donkey Kong's code for use in the new game,
13:02thereby completely cutting its former partner out of the process. Ikegami Sashinki was understandably
13:08peeved at Nintendo's sequel and sued the gaming giant for infringing on its copyright for
13:12Donkey Kong. The court recognized that the code in Donkey Kong Jr. belonged to Ikegami
13:17Sashinki, but the two companies decided to settle out of court before the legal battle
13:21went any further.
13:23Over the years, Nintendo has relied on actors in costumes to promote its games. Unfortunately,
13:28one character has caused real problems for the actors who have played him, causing multiple
13:32people who have donned the costume to sue Nintendo for alleged mistreatment. Which character
13:37has caused so much grief, you ask? Donkey Kong.
13:39Parker Mills sued Nintendo in 2014 after working an event at the Los Angeles Zoo. Mills was
13:45asked to wear a Donkey Kong costume at the event to celebrate the release of Donkey Kong
13:49Country Returns 3D. Mills' attorney said that his client was denied breaks and was not given
13:54the ice pack he required to stay cool in the suit. Mills ended up tearing his aorta
13:58walls and also required surgery to implant a defibrillator due to physical stress.
14:03Michael O'Conney Trio, meanwhile, sued Nintendo in 2016 after performing as Donkey Kong in
14:09a Culver City CA mall. O'Conney Trio claimed that he was required by Nintendo to wear a
14:13Donkey Kong costume which he said was, quote, "...poorly ventilated and unreasonably and
14:18dangerously hot." O'Conney Trio blamed the suit for causing permanent damage as well
14:23as mental and emotional distress. The lesson here is, if you ever work for Nintendo, don't
14:28wear the Donkey Kong suit.
14:30Nintendo is known for selling older games on newer hardware, which can cause some fans
14:34to buy the same title over and over, generation after generation. Nintendo kept this tradition
14:39alive on the Wii with the Virtual Console. The Wii Virtual Console was an emulator, enabling
14:44players to purchase and play games from a number of past Nintendo consoles. Of course,
14:49Nintendo couldn't help but include its best-selling game from any system prior. Super Mario Bros.
14:53Customers who bought Super Mario Bros. for the Wii Virtual Console were greeted with
14:58the fairly standard version of the classic title. However, further inspection of the
15:02files by Eurogamer revealed the game had portions of code that were similar to Super Mario Bros.
15:07ROMs shared online. ROMs are copies of a video game's code that can be run on an emulator.
15:12Eurogamer turned the game files over to Marat Fajerlin, the creator of the INES emulator,
15:17for further inspection. Fajerlin confirmed that the Super Mario Bros. files used by the
15:21Wii Virtual Console were virtually identical to the ones found in other pirated copies
15:26online.
15:27When pressed about the similarities between the Virtual Console version of Super Mario
15:31Bros. and the legal copies posted online, Nintendo chose not to comment. This led some
15:36to speculate that Nintendo was indeed selling customers a file downloaded from the internet.
15:42In 1989, Nintendo's legal department decided it had a bone to pick with the movie rental
15:47store Blockbuster. Nintendo claimed that the rental giant was repeatedly violating its
15:51intellectual property rights when renting out Nintendo games.
15:54The issue wasn't that Blockbuster was making money by renting those titles out to customers,
15:59which is what you might assume. Instead, the House of Mario was unhappy about a totally
16:03different thing Blockbuster was doing to help those renting video games from its stores.
16:08Nintendo took Blockbuster to court after discovering the rental chain was routinely copying its
16:12game instruction booklets. Blockbuster wanted to make sure people could play the games they
16:16paid for, so it included copies of instruction manuals along with rentals as a courtesy.
16:22Nintendo and Blockbuster eventually settled the matter out of court, with Blockbuster
16:26promising to cease its copying of Nintendo's manuals. Blockbuster instead started including
16:30third-party instruction booklets, ensuring players still had the information they needed
16:35to enjoy their rentals.
16:37Sometimes you're playing a game and there's an obstacle that you just can't get past.
16:40Whether it's a challenging platform stage or a particularly tough boss, repeated failure
16:44can quickly become frustrating. After so many failed attempts, you might look for cheat
16:49codes, or perhaps search for a way to cheese the game. Back in the 8-bit era, some companies
16:54began marketing new products that could create cheats for games, even if those games didn't
16:58have cheat codes. These devices manipulated a game's code to enable things like invincibility
17:03or extra lives.
17:05Nintendo didn't like the notion of other companies making a profit by modifying the intended
17:09functionality of its games. As a result, Nintendo took a galoob at the maker of the infamous
17:14Game Genie to court in 1990. It argued that the Game Genie violated its copyright by creating
17:19derivative works. However, since the Game Genie couldn't change a game's code unless
17:23it was attached to the cartridge itself, the courts sided against Nintendo. This enabled
17:28the Game Genie and products like it to continue being sold to gamers around the world.
17:32You can bet Nintendo is thankful these devices aren't as popular today as they once were.
17:38Nintendo made headlines in late 2020 after YouTuber Captain Alex ran a successful Indiegogo
17:43campaign to sell themed Joy-Con shells to raise money for charity. The shells were designed
17:48in honor of YouTuber Etika, and the proceeds were meant to go to the non-profit JED Foundation.
17:54Despite the campaign's good intentions, a cease-and-desist letter was sent to Captain
17:58Alex by Nintendo over the use of the word Joy-Cons and the use of the Switch logo. Speaking
18:04to The Independent, Captain Alex clarified that the letter also referenced other violations
18:08that had to do with the use of Nintendo's logos on products he was selling in his Etsy
18:13store.
18:14Despite his frustrations with the situation, Captain Alex recognized that he'd infringed
18:18on Nintendo's copyrights. Still, Nintendo's targeting of small creators hasn't gone unnoticed,
18:23and the entire situation has stirred a fair amount of negative sentiment regarding how
18:27Nintendo seems to value its fans.
18:30The Big House, a popular Super Smash Bros. tournament that goes back to 2011, had its
18:36shut down by Nintendo's legal team. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the tournament
18:40had arranged for participants to use an emulated copy of Super Smash Bros. Melee, running a
18:45mod called Slippy, which allows for online play. But Nintendo, a longtime partner of
18:49the competition, set an ultimatum for The Big House. Disallow the use of the mod, or
18:54face legal consequences. In the end, The Big House insisted on using Slippy, so Nintendo
18:59issued a cease-and-desist letter for the whole 2020 event.
19:03This wasn't a popular move in the larger Smash community's eyes, leading to hashtag Free
19:07Melee trending on Twitter and notable players in the Smash scene berating Nintendo for taking
19:12away a rare chance competitors had to compete during a pandemic.