Nintendo cracking down on leaks with FBI, legal action, and more

Over the years, Nintendo has been the target of tons of high-profile leaks from self-dubbed “insiders”. These leaks have resulted in Pokemon and Smash Brothers characters being leaked ahead of reveals, Directs being rumored, and much more. Even with all of their efforts, Nintendo is unable to keep things as tight as they’d like.

We’re in an industry of leaks, it’s bound to happen and some companies shrug it off as nothing. However, some leaks are too damaging to ignore and legal action is pursued. Things are changing for the Japanese giant following a massive Pokemon leak last November with some leakers even being caught by the FBI.

“Nintendo has been increasingly aggressive when it comes to combating leaks,” said an anonymous member of the Nintendo leaking community when speaking to Wired. According to the source, a few years prior “it absolutely wasn’t as threatening, and even just early last year it wasn’t bad.”

The Wired article also shares a pretty insane story of a teenage kid hacking the big N, which we recommend reading, but the moral of the story is: Nintendo is not happy. This doesn’t mean any more leaks ever again but it does mean you’re probably not going to get ones to the degree that you’ve been seeing.

Journalist Liam Robertson, who is known for some spicy scoops, took to Twitter to note that a lot of the insiders who are going quiet are doing so for a specific reason. Nintendo is specifically cracking down on those who are obtaining information illegally by stealing, hacking, and a lot of other nefarious things. Those who do things legit by speaking to sources aren’t in any real trouble as there’s nothing illegal about being told information.

“Going to reiterate this now that the Wired article is out. If anyone is telling you they’re stopping sharing info due to pressure from Nintendo, think about why they would say that. They didn’t get that info legally,” said Robertson. “These ‘insiders’ who hack servers and gain info through other illegal methods are not journalists. They’re only interested in their own egos and social media clout, not journalism.”

Nintendo’s next title on their release slate is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The highly-anticipated game will launch on March 25th exclusively for Nintendo Switch