Nintendo has reportedly talked to Genki directly about their Switch 2 demo on CES.
As reported by GoNintendo, this claim comes from French journalist Julien Tellouck, who made a video talking about this and also provided this translation in English:
“I spoke with the guy from Genki, just behind me. He told me that Nintendo had already sent lawyers their way. But Genki has nothing to worry about because they’ve never signed any papers with Nintendo, no confidentiality agreement, no NDA. So, the Japanese brand is in the clear.”
Just to make things clear, in spite of what Genki said, not signing a confidentiality agreement or NDA is not a guarantee they would not be free of any consequences in this situation. If, as Genki claims, they didn’t get any information directly from Nintendo, than they could be guilty of spreading confidential information, even if they aren’t sure about what things that they know is real.
Subsequently, some fans have taken this latest news as indirect confirmation that the Switch 2 rumors spread by Genki are accurate, but that also is not necessarily the case. As we reported on the case of the PlayStation 5 Pro, Sony DMCA’d a video by YouTuber Moore’s Law Is Dead spreading claims about the console that was datamined from PlayStation’s developer portal.
As it turns out, even when that YouTuber acquired that information from a leak that was verified by IGN and Insider Gaming, the information they were spreading was inaccurate. And that was because they didn’t know the full picture of the information from the developer portal.
This all came to a head when no less than Mark Cerny, PlayStation’s hardware designer, made a video to clarify what Sony’s claims were about the PlayStation 5 Pro. Cerny went so far as to dub the misinformation spread by PlayStation fans, and seemingly corroborated by IGN and Insider Gaming, as ‘flopflation.’
It’s somewhat remarkable that the most enthusiastic gamers are eager to jump onto rumors knowing that that information may not be real or accurate. It’s a good thing that Nintendo sees greater success selling their games and platforms beyond that hardcore base, to younger gamers and families. They aren’t as vulnerable to fan narratives that could harm their business with that hardcore niche.
But to get back to Genki, if they were approached by Nintendo, it may be just as likely that they were told to stop spreading rumors about the Switch 2 because the rumors are inaccurate. Because if that were the case, it would harm Nintendo’s plans for the actual announcement and reveal. It wouldn’t be the first time that Nintendo fans set themselves up for disappointment, over things Nintendo never promised, and that led to unfair consequences for Nintendo’s products.
