Kyoto police have arrested a 27-year-old man who allegedly sent threatening messages to Nintendo, claiming to have planted bombs at the company’s headquarters. While no dangerous devices were found, it’s not the first time the Switch 2 manufacturer has been threatened.
KTV News (translated by Automaton) reports that the man had been sending Nintendo envelopes with letters inside with threats claiming he had planted “multiple bombs” near the company’s offices. “I’m going to blow you all up” and “my plans cannot be thwarted,” he reportedly wrote in messages to the Mario maker.
Nintendo reported this initially back on March 16, and after a sweep, it was determined no bombs were actually planted on the premises, but the man admitted to sending the letters and was finally arrested on May 12. At the moment, no motive has been publicly shared. All we know about the guy is that he was apparently unemployed.
Nintendo has been subject to bomb threats multiple times over the years, including a 2024 incident in which a man threatened to bomb the company’s upcoming events, which led to Nintendo canceling a Splatoon tournament and the Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo gatherings. Oddly enough, Nintendo was part of an investigation in 2023 for what was perceived to be a vague bomb threat at the California State University because a student jokingly asked a professor to cancel class at the same time as a Nintendo Direct, which was perceived as a “vague threat.”
Bomb threats toward big video game companies are not super common, but happen more often than you’d think. Ubisoft evacuated over 500 staff members from its Montpellier studio in February due to a threat, but nothing suspicious was found and everyone was thankfully unharmed.