While it would be funny. Nintendo won't do it. They wanna be on friendly terms with orange boy so govco keeps helping them slap down ROM sites and prosecuting emulation enjoyers.
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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This type of content by the DHS could literally damage Nintendo's brand, and all of us are painfully aware at how strongly Nintendo protects their brand. I'm fairly sure they WOULD throw the weight of all their lawyers against the administration for even daring to associate human rights violations with them.
The trick is to reply to posts about it saying something like “I can’t believe Nintendo are supporting the actions of ICE. I refuse to let my kids anywhere near Nintendo products!”
Ragebaiting Nintendo into suing the Trump administration is such an absurd situation and I'm even MORE flabbergasted at the fact it could actually work.
Alternatively: "Using Nintendo music is fine. They didn't go against ICE over it, so they obviously don't care about it"
Exactly this. If I recall, there's a principle in at least some IP* law suggesting that each time you don't defend your absolute ownership of the IP, you are making it easier for others legally get away with infringing in future.
I know just enough to imagine this could wildly differ between patent, trademark, copyright, and whatever other realms there are in IP.
*Intellectual Property, for anyone unfamiliar with or not quite placing the acronym.
The trick is for it to obviously cost them more to not act.
Good luck with that, hasn't worked so far.
Not that you shouldn't boycott the shit out of Nintendo if you want to, just don't hold your breath while waiting for them to do something that isn't profit motivated.
Duh, just get enough people on Twitter to say they'll cancel their Nintendo Online subscriptions and sell their Switches if they refuse to act and they'll do it in a dime.
Also, people literally forced Disney's hand by cancelling all of their subscriptions. Bullying corporations is extremely easy now that we have access to their social media.
I'd say good luck getting sintendo fans to do this, but I'm a delusional optimist.
On one hand, I hope it works and on the other I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest bootlickers would go around mass reporting and doxxing anybody who does this.
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Also, people literally forced Disney’s hand by cancelling all of their subscriptions. Bullying corporations is extremely easy now that we have access to their social media.
They did, but the difference there is that disney already took a position and realised they'd fucked up directly (fiscally, disney absolutely does not give a fuck about morality or ethics ) and then had to backtrack.
Nintendo haven't (actively) taken a position yet, if they do then they'd have to face the backlash of whichever way that went in the court of public opinion.
by not taking a position they only get the backlash from the passive "support" of a position.
That is a rare case. If people actually cared and kept their word most non-maga owned news outlets would be out of business. Yet, people still watch, read and subscribe to those outlets despite them constantly posting about how crappy those orgs are. People are creatures of comfort. I imagine most that cancelled their subscriptions turned them right back on once they heard Kimmel was no longer suspended. Most major retailers and companies that dropped their DEI policies saw little to no loss.
Companies respond to big money, if enough people turned away from those companies they’d behave very differently
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It could, but fighting over it definitely will.
Even without any reprisal from the administration; the hypothetical lawsuit would be a very public affair. Nintendo would be inserting itself directly into the fight over US immigration law; and approximately no one in the US would see it as them defending their trademark rights. The anti-imigrant crowd would see it as a direct attack on Trump's deportation efforts. The anti masked-officer-shoving-people-into-an-unmarked-van-and-sending-them-to-a-venezualan-contrantion-camp would also see it that way.
In contrast, if they do nothing, no one is going to look at that tweet and think that Nintendo was actually involved or approved of it.
They are only human rights violations when the bad countries do them.
You can’t win a lawsuit against a dictator.
They’re far more likely to send a random Japanese employee to be introduced to Trump as Mr. Nintendo, present Trump with a Pikachu figurine that’s been spray painted gold, tell Trump that Pokeman references make his stormtroopers look childish, and offer a bribe.
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True, but it's fun to joke about. I'd even go as far as to say foreign corporations have less of a moral obligation to stick it to this fascist regime than American companies do. Getting our shit together is our responsibility.
Remember when conservatives thought pokemon were devil creatures?
As The Verge points out in their article, Nintendo will most likely not to anything about it. But I sure would love to see them try.
The relevant part of the article:
Don’t hold your breath: The Pokémon Company’s former chief legal officer Don McGowan (who spent nearly 12 years there, as well as multi-year stints at Bungie and Microsoft) thinks there’s no way that his former company would sue.
”Even if I was still at the company I wouldn’t touch this, and I’m the most trigger-happy CLO [Chief Legal Officer] I’ve ever met. This will blow over in a couple of days and they’ll be happy to let it,” he told IGN.
Why? One reason is that like some other executives Trump has previously and corruptly leveraged, some of The Pokémon Company’s leaders personally depend on the US’s good graces: “Many of their execs in the USA are on green cards,” he said. Another reason, he says, is that The Pokémon Company doesn’t want the press.
"Nintendo rolls over like a dog"
Nintendogs*
Cowards
Yeah because the Pokémon company is only really into making bad cash grab games. They wouldn't touch this at all.
The Pokemon's only real asset at this point is their brand value. Being appropriated by an unpopular or controversial third party is a textbook example of why a company would want to use trademark law to protect their brand identity.
Having said that, I agree that the brand damage here is likely minimal; and certainly far less than the damage that getting into a legal fight with DHS would be.
Another reason is that a fashist authoritarian hypercapitalist reign of terror is dangerous and it's best to keep his head down and obey because it's not his head on the chopping block yet
From a legal perspective, this is copyright infringement.
From a PR perspective, if Nintendo did nothing, they are siding with this type of use and with those who used it in such a fashion. This may be good or bad, depending on how Nintendo actually sides. If they did something about it, they may he making enemies with the court systems, but they may be making friends with them, depending on how the court system sides.
Basically, they have precedence to sue, but whether or not they do, and what the outcome would be, is anybody's guess. But if this goes live, I would appreciate a heads up, because popcorn takes a few minutes to prepare.
This is brand tarnishment pretty clearly on the trademark side, too. If not for the apparent lasso the admin has around executives' nuts with their green cards (according to the former CLO in an article), this would represent an immense amount of liability on DHS' part. I still wonder if they might nevertheless press forward with litigation just to tamp down on the brand damage tbh
ETA: also, the potential recoverable damages are actually theoretically immense in a case like this, between statutory damages per copyright infringement and loss of sales to brand tarnishment. Very low chance, asymptotic to 0 percent likelihood, but it would be immensely satisfying if this is what zeros out ICE incredible funding bump.
If Nintendo sued them, I'd actually be willing to buy a Switch2, just on principle.
Hell I would actually buy one from the official Nintendo shop on MercadoLibre and not from a reseller LOL
"Thanks satan"
I've never purchased a new Nintendo product, if they sued DHS I'd definitely pick up a Switch 2!
I would hate Nintendo slightly less if they did it, please let it happen please...🤞
The government is literally, and in an official capacity, posting edgy alt right teen discord videos. If I were 15 and a piece of shit again, I’d find this funny.
If you went back two decades and told them the US government would be posting edgy videos and memes on their official Twitter accounts, they'd think you grew a third head.
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Nintendo:
Oh I would be so happy if they manage to piss off Disney and Nintendo in the same week
Nintendo only targets weak prey, like customers, fans, and smaller competitors. I would be shocked if they even issued a statement, let alone action.
Nintendo should do to Kristi Noem what they (ALLEGEDLY) did to Gunpei Yokoi.
I'm outraged that Nintendo has a contract with ICE to produce pokeballs for catching suspected illegal immigrants.
.gov sites have lost the sense of taste
Hell, they've lost all sense of legitimacy and respect. Turned into your grandfather's thinly veiled racist social media posts.
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Nintendo has a chance to be the best, like no one ever was...
I hate to break this to you, but Nintendo aren't your friends and will happily lick ICE's boots clean.
EDIT: I will happily admit I was wrong about this. Good for you Nintendo.
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The video in question for those who haven't seen it yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VI5tZoBZ0s
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Unless that slogan is trademarked (and even then)... dunno... ask Legal Eagle.
The animation video clips sure are copyrighted. Ask Ketchum is Nintendo's intellectual property. I've been in fangame spaces for years. The motto is - when the articles come out; the uploads go down.
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They have the ability but they won't because they spent the past 6 months bootlicking the current government over Trump's insane tariff nuke policies, just like every other company has.
Kia literally just got raided by ICE and they announced they were continuing to invest in the US not even a week later.
Most they'd be willing to do would be to ask ~~Japan's ambassador~~ local liaison to ask DHS to remove the video, which ~~the ambassador~~ liason or foreign diplomat himself may even refuse to do under fear of retaliation or breakdown in ongoing negotiations.
Nintendo will sacrifice its brand image all day if it means staying in the US market and not becoming the target of Trump's next company assassination in some convoluted political stunt.
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