IS NINTENDO A DICK?

Nintendo, eh. They're the Disney of video games, yeah? All family-friendly, and jolly, and nice and stuff. I mean, take Mario; he's so approachable. Dontcha just wanna rub his bare belly, while making this noise: "thp-thppp-thpp-thhhppp"?

But look closer into Mario's eyes. There's something else there... something cold, ruthless, uncompromising. Those are the eyes that represent a corporate ethos which maximises profits, while attempting to crush its competition by any means. 

I've been as guilty as anyone of giving Nintendo a smooth ride, but no more... it's time to lay out the evidence, and ask the question: Is Nintendo a dick?

DELIBERATELY LIMITING STOCK

Nintendo took it upon itself to pick up the sausage dropped when the games industry crashed in 1983. Sensibly, it was determined to avoid the sort of over-saturation of product which had led to Atari's wacky fall from grace.

Consequently, Nintendo intentionally created shortages of both games and hardware. While this might have avoided another crash, it limited profits for third-party publishers, left many punters unable to get their hands on the hottest new games, and churned up a brouhaha of hype.

Contrast this with the state of the Switch's eShop, where over 10,000 new indie games arrive every day, like a sort of reverse-online-Black Friday, whatever that means.

DICK-RATING: 6/10

FORCING GAMES COMPANIES TO BUY CARTRIDGES FROM THEM

One of the ways Nintendo could control the number of games on the market was by limiting the games a publisher could release for its hardware in a given year. Additionally, by forcing third-parties to purchase cartridges direct from them - and insisting on a two-year window of exclusivity for any game - Nintendo stopped profits leaking elsewhere. 

​Nintendo is still using propriety storage mediums today, which is why games cost more on the Switch than on other consoles.

​In short: Nintendo is like a jealous and controlling lover. Also: its Switch cartridges taste disgusting. 

DICK-RATING: 7/10

IT THREW SEGA UNDER THE BUS AT A CONGRESSIONAL HEARING

At the height of the "video game nasty" storm of the early-90s, representatives for both Sega and Nintendo spoke at a Congressional hearing.

Rather than stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Sega, in a gesture of games industry solidarity, Nintendo instead affirmed that, unlike its competitor - then backed into a corner over the release of the supposedly ultra-horrifying Night Trap - it had never released any violent games. 

Night Trap is currently available for the Nintendo Switch.

DICK-RATING: 8/10

IT WOULD THREATEN RETAILERS

Nintendo no longer has a games industry monopoly, but back at the height of its dominance over the industry - with the NES and Super NES - it would threaten to pull its products from their stores if they stocked rival systems.

You know: like a spoilt child called Graham not letting his friend Marcus play with his football, because he found out that Marcus went round Tot's house at the weekend instead of going to Graham's house, but Marcus had said he couldn't go over to Graham's house, because he was going to a clown's funeral.

​In some cases, this would've been catastrophic for retailers; over one in every five dollars spent at Toys R Us during peak-NESmania was on a Nintendo-branded product.

DICK-RATING: 8/10

NINTENDO STABBED SONY IN THE BACK

As we all know, Sony worked with Nintendo for some time to develop a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES. Sony unveiled its "Play Station" device, and announced its partnership with Nintendo, at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. 

The very next day, Nintendo - neglecting to inform Sony of its intentions - announced to the world that they would be partnering with Philips instead. It all proved to be a dastardly ruse, with Nintendo using the supposed Philips partnership to gain leverage over Sony in additional negotiations.

DICK-RATING: 6/10

LAWSUITS... SO MANY LAWSUITS...

Nintendo is one of the most litigious companies in the world. If it gets even a hint that its intellectual property is threatened, it'll punt a cease-and-decist notice up somebody's bum faster than you can say "Up the bum". Sometimes it works enough to scare people into submission. Other times, Nintendo has to rock up in court and justify their heavy-handeness.

However, it doesn't always turn out in Nintendo's favour. 

Some of the companies it has attempted - and failed - to sue include Codemasters/Galoob over their Game Genie cheat device, and Blockbuster (because it rented out Nintendo games). However, Nintendo recently won a long-running case against a small Japanese company called MariCar, which offers Mario Kart-themed tours of Tokyo.

In addition, Nintendo has been sued a number of times by others, and even lost a patent case relating to the Wii's motion control technology.

DICK-RATING: 7/10

GETTING ROM SITES SHUT DOWN

Unlike many other games companies, Nintendo continues to mine its back catalogue, retaining a sense of pride in its heritage. It's sort of fair enough, I guess, that it would want to stop others pirating its games and making them available online for free.

However, rather than issue cease-and-desist notices requesting to have its games removed from these sites, Nintendo recently succeed in getting several huge, and long-running, ROM sites taken down entirely - including all the games (many of which were out of copyright) not belonging to Nintendo.

Nintendo is basically the East India Trading Company of gaming. Or something. 

DICK-RATING: 6/10

NINTENDO SWITCH IS SOLD AT A PROFIT

Want to know how greedy Nintendo is? The Switch is the only console hardware that is currently being sold for a profit. Both Sony and Microsoft discount their systems.

DICK-RATING: 4/10

BEING DICKISH TO YOUTUBERS

Nintendo does not like YouTubers or streamers playing its games online. Why? No idea. Put a Nintendo game in one of your videos, and chances are Nintendo will kick you in the neck with a copyright claim, and your video will be demonetised, or taken down entirely, and your trousers will fall off!!!

When faced with criticism over their policy, Nintendo established its creators program - allowing YouTubers to use its games, but giving Nintendo a percentage of any profits they make on the video. 

In short: "Advertising revenue for any YouTube video that contains Nintendo intellectual property is currently sent directly to Nintendo, according to YouTube rules. The Nintendo Creators Program is a program that Nintendo has created to return a percentage of that revenue back to the YouTube video creators."

How very kind of them.

DICK-RATING: 8/10

NINTENDO USES SLAVE LABOUR

Nintendo is one of a number of companies - including, admittedly, its rival Microsoft - to take advantage of the USA's privatised prison system. With 25% of the world's prison population - the United States has more imprisoned citizens than any other country (chew on that for a moment...) - Nintendo has utilised free prison labour to help with packaging its hardware and software "overflow". 

Thanks to the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, this is the only form of slavery still allowed in America. And Nintendo uses it.

​ACTUAL PRISONERS COULD BE BOXING UP YOUR NINTENDO GAMES.

DICK-RATING: 9/10