Japan: suspect behind death threats to Nintendo Co. Ltd arrested [Update]
Back in December, Nintendo announced that the Nintendo Live Tokyo 2024 event (initially slated for January) was cancelled due to “persistent threats” targeting Nintendo employees, event staff, and the audience. And today, the Kyoto Shimbun revealed that the suspect behind those threats has finally been arrested.
The suspect is a man in his twenties, and more precisely a local civil servant from the Ibaraki Prefecture. He was arrested after sending death threats via the enquiry form on Nintendo’s official website, last year.
The suspect is accused of obstructing the company’s business by sending repeated death threats via that form. However, his motive remains unknown as of writing.
According to the indictment, the suspect sent a total of 39 threats between August 22nd and November 29th 2023. The messages he sent includes:
- “You will pay for releasing such a shitty game.”
- “I’ll kill everyone involved.”
- “If I were you, I’d worry about events with spectators.”
But whatever that motive may be, Nintendo took his threats extremely seriously by cancelling Nintendo Live Tokyo 2024 altogether, and delaying the finals of the Splatoon Koshien 2023 tournament, in order to protect both audience and staff.
