I get really frustrated with poor journalism within video game journalism. It seems to happen a lot in relation to the Switch Take this recent post for example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/1dspoiy/switch_2_wont_face_low_supply_legal_action/
The title of tech4gamers article says that "Legal Action Planned Against Scalpers". It doesn't directly say Nintendo's planning on suing scalpers, but saying legal action heavily implies that.
Here's the problem. Nintendo didn't say that at all!
The article was based on Nintendo's recently shareholder question and answer that's available here:
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2024/qa2406.pdf
Here is question 2 as translated by Google translate:
"Q2: I would like to ask about measures to prevent resale of the successor to the Nintendo Switch. At last year's general shareholders meeting, you said that you would take measures to prevent resale by ensuring sufficient production of the hardware, but are you making progress on these measures?"
"A2: Furukawa: As a measure against resale, we believe that it is most important to produce a sufficient number of units to meet customer demand, and this approach has not changed since last year. In addition, we are considering whether we can take any measures within the scope of the law, taking into account the circumstances of each region. In addition, last year and the year before, we were unable to produce a sufficient amount of Nintendo Switch hardware due to a shortage of semiconductor parts, but this situation has now been resolved. We do not believe that the shortage of parts will have a significant impact on production for successor models at this time."
It doesn't at all say that Nintendo plans to sue or take legal action against scalpers. (And I hate scalpers.) It says that Nintendo wants to do what they legally can! That's completely different!
Switch "journalists" should be held to a higher standard. I don't know whether the problem was a bad translation or huge logic jumps. But it's ridiculous that articles like this gain traction based on bad journalism.
by pickledgreatness
26 Comments
Welcome to internet journalism friend, it’s all about clickbait!
“In addition, we are considering whether we can take any measures within the scope of the law, taking into account the circumstances of each region.”
It’s not a direct announcement of legal actions against specific individuals. But make no mistake, this sentence is a legal threat. In business, you do not say anything that hints or implies you may be considering legal action unless you are serious and ready to take such action.
Given that this is a reply to a shareholder, the expectation should be that Nintendo is prepared to take legal action against scalpers and anyone else who may threaten a successful Switch 2 launch.
>In addition, we are considering whether we can take any measures within the scope of the law, taking into account the circumstances of each region.
A lot of news sites editorialised their headlines to hell, but this is still Nintendo saying they’re looking into legal action available to them should they need to pursue scalpers or their accomplices. This is probably all it is because it’s not very common for companies to successfully go after scalpers through legal means. Their best bet will always be being readily prepared with enough units to ship.
>That’s still not what they said. They made a generic statement about doing what they could do within the scope of the law in regions. They didn’t say anything about pursuing scalpers or their accomplices.
It’s not exactly nondescript. It’s wrapped in the wider context of Nintendo wishing to tackle supply issues and how they’re exacerbated by elements outside of their control.
What do you think they mean by them saying they’re exploring legal options? The only real legal issue they could be possibly facing is mitigating measures to stop scalpers bottlenecking local supply. Stores limiting purchases is already a widespread, agreed practice with suppliers. There’s nothing else in the legal sense for them to explore other than what legal power they have against scalpers.
I’m surprised a shareholder even cares, as Nintendo still sells all their units and makes their money.
Unless they’re getting at Nintendo should just sell for higher prices to reduce scalping, that would make sense.
Or if like, they own the bare minimum 100 shares for access to the meeting to ask these kinds of questions..
What could measures within the scope of the law mean then?
Consider reading about the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#:~:text=2006.%5B142%5D-,Gell%2DMann%20amnesia%20effect,-%5Bedit%5D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#:~:text=2006.%5B142%5D-,Gell%2DMann%20amnesia%20effect,-%5Bedit%5D)
Sell them on the website for the first 6 months and limit 1 per account that is at least 6 months old or 4 per IP address.
I don’t think they can take legal action against scalpers even if they wanted to. They legally bought a product and are reselling it at the going aftermarket value. If companies want to tackle shortages and scalping it’s going to start with their policies and check out procedures. If you do it the way that Sony did it through PlayStation direct for most of your inventory you will have absolutely zero problems. If you do it the way that Sony did it through other stores such as Best buy and Amazon, where it was crashing the website from everybody spamming it at the same time and people with dozens of bots have by far the best odds, then you will have scalpers. There’s a happy medium in between where everybody rushes the website but once you get in you’re not forced to as rapidly as possible spam the checkout, and instead get placed into an orderly queue, and check out, and for the first few months they limit the orders to one per account or one per address making it harder for scalpers
You need to learn to read between the lines with the line “In addition, we are considering whether we can take any measures within the scope of the law, taking into account the circumstances of each region.”.
That means that as long as the person is breaking the laws of that specific region, they are considering pursuing those. It’s worded a bit ambiguously, but that’s what businesses do so people don’t know exactly what they will do.
The main takeaway I get here is they plan to have enough units avaliable that scalping isn’t really necessary/viable in most markets.
I wish. Stop litigating fan projects and start litigating scalpers
Yea that’s poor journalism. Another thing that imo isn’t good is that websites are using Google Translate. Nintendo literally puts out an official translation a few days later, but no website waits for that even though they do it every time. Instead they rely on machine translation that isn’t always accurate or has the same nuance.
This kind of conjectures happen all the time and nobody bats an eye. It’s Nintendo so of course people talk more about it. But journalists always been on the tail for not doing there whole research,
Japanese speaker here.
From the original text, it seems to me that they are already inquiring what measures can be taken to prevent it from happening, while remaining within the legal frame of each region, rather than just considering doing things.
They are not threatening to take any actions though, they are just trying preventing it from happening.
You could have just not post this, and let scalpers think Nintendo said that.
Thanks OP for a great post and calling out the previous posts and shit websites. Funny enough yesterday NintendoLife published [that article ](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/07/component-shortage-no-longer-an-issue-for-switch-successor-says-nintendo) and a few minutes after reading it I see *the* other post. I was quite confused reading the Tech article….
Then I remembered why I read NintendoLife and not shitty news websites.
The amount of upvotes really shook me. That so many people in this sub are so critical of information and yet believe the first thing that pops up saying there’ll be legal action against scalpers.
On another note, while I know the problem with scalpers and also not trying to defend, but I don’t see how TO NINTENDO, scalpers buying their console is an issue. Sure, just like with the PS5, it affects us, the consumers, but Nitendo will still sell and people will still look for it until they buy theirs, just like the PS5 again. It’d be nice FOR US for them to set up some way to control the sales where scalpers won’t have it so easy, but they don’t have to. Let’s not pretend like Nintendo has our best interests at heart, but their own (money).
>それ以外にも、各地域の事情を踏まえて、法令の許す範囲で何らかの対策ができないか検討を進めています。
>Other than that, we are considering to take any actions based on what is legally allowed in each region’s circumstances.
I think that’s how you translate the this sentence?
The headline for that story says Nintendo plans to take legal action against scalpers. While I agree it narrows down the broad statement that Nintendo gave, it’s also the most natural expectation from what they said. If the jurisdiction allows them to prosecute scalpers, that’s certainly one of the things they are looking into. Otherwise they are looking at other avenues depending on the jurisdiction.
Also, notice that the headline itself is a bit broader than “suing scalpers”. That was your version of narrowing things down further. Taking legal action against scalpers doesn’t need to be suing them but other actions that will make their lives more difficult.
Just do what Valve did with SD….. Limit 1 sale per customer, per address, per IP…. And keep a large reserve only for direct purchases from Nintendo if you have an active NSO/NSO+ memebership with $50-100 in digital game purchases to show you’re a player and not reseller
Whether they have grounds for a form of legality in the USA; I would be thrilled and over the moon to see some things put in place to put an end to this.
Websites like StockX and such need to go. The bigger issue is obviously the fact that, Americans, have a nasty habit of paying a mark-up on a product that they can’t wait to get their hands on. The sense of urgency for products is innate, a very big issue in modern culture.
I would welcome change that ends this.
I mean I would think it is fair to infer something other than sitting on their thumbs about it given the verbiage. Maybe I’m the presumptuous one here, y’all will be very sure to tell me…but that sounds like a pretty heavy indicator despite not using the exact phrase you are looking for. No?
All I know is that I wish SOMEONE would figure out how to sue scalper scumbags.
I appreciate the fact-checking legwork. Obviously there’s nothing illegal about buying something and then selling it.
The best tactic would be to sell a huge volume of consoles at the outset so scalpers buy them all up. Then, announce an immediate price cut.
In that old thread when I tried to tell people that scalping Video game consoles isn’t illegal and that Nintendo has no way of pursuing legal action against scalpers. I was told I had no idea what I was talking about.
Feel like I’m owed an apology.