Former Nintendo Executive Says Amazon Once Requested 'Illegal' Price Discounts

Source: Slashdot

Background

Former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils‑Aimé revealed that Amazon once tried to pressure Nintendo into illegal pricing practices. During a recent NYU lecture (see the lecture video), he recounted a conversation with an Amazon executive, as reported by Kotaku.

The Conversation

“Amazon was looking to get bigger into the video game space,” Fils‑Aimé said. “Amazon’s mentality back then was they wanted to have the lowest price out in the marketplace, even lower than Walmart… Essentially what Amazon wanted was an obscene amount of financial support so they could have the lowest price and beat Walmart. I literally said to the executive, ‘You know that’s illegal, right? I can’t do that.’”

At the time, the Wii and DS were Nintendo’s best‑selling hardware. Amazon, originally a bookseller, had rapidly expanded in the 2000s into a one‑stop shop for almost everything—except Nintendo products.

Nintendo’s Response

Fils‑Aimé continued:

“Literally we stopped selling to Amazon, and it’s because I wasn’t going to do something illegal. I wasn’t going to do something that would put at risk the relationship we have with other retailers.”

Aftermath

The two companies later reconciled, and Nintendo products—including the Switch 2—are now available on Amazon. However, for a long period Nintendo consoles were largely unavailable on the site.

• Details on the dispute: Nintendo Everything article
• Coverage by The Verge: The Verge article
• Earlier unavailability: Nintendo Everything article on Wii/DS relationship