Man behind Nintendo Live Tokyo 2024 cancelation sentenced to one year in prison
by Hitmarker
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Kenshin Kazama, a 27-year-old Hitachi City employee, has been sentenced to one year in prison and four years of probation after sending 39 threatening messages to Nintendo between August 22 and November 29 of last year.
The details:
- Kazama's messages led to the Splatoon Koshien 2023 National Finals and Nintendo Live Tokyo 2024 being canceled last December and January, respectively. He had threatened to "kill people at the venue" if the Splatoon event took place. At the time, Nintendo said it had received "persistent threats targeting our employees" which had also "spread to spectators."
- Two other messages from Kazama, as reported by VGC in April via the Japanese newspaper Kyoto Shimbun, contained the following threats, "I'm going to make you regret releasing such a crappy game to the world" and "I'm going to kill everyone involved."
- While calling the actions of Kazama "persistent and vicious" before handing down his sentence, Judge Hiroshi Kawakami of Kyoto District Court also outlined one of the supposed mitigating factors being the 27-year-old's actions, "The defendant was frustrated by the fact that he continued to lose in online matches of Nintendo games."
Other recent Nintendo news:
- Following the release of a creepy trailer last week, Nintendo confirmed that a new installment in the Famicom Detective Club series is on its way after 35 years.
- Translators who have worked on multiple first-party Nintendo titles through an external agency have complained about a lack of recognition for their efforts.
- Nintendo has filed two new lawsuits against Modded Hardware and r/SwitchPirates moderator James "Archbox" Williams for allegedly selling mod chips and providing advice on pirating Switch games.
Other recent gaming news:
- A Bloomberg report has claimed that Roblox prioritizes growth over player safety due to the gaming platform's internal target of hitting one billion daily users and has a "pedophile problem."
- All 500 members of Blizzard's World of Warcraft team have formed the largest union in Microsoft's gaming portfolio, following the lead of 240 staff at Bethesda Game Studios.
