Nintendo Live Tokyo 2024 death and bomb threat sender arrested  

On April 3 2024, police in Kyoto arrested a 27-year-old man in connection with the death and bomb threats made towards Nintendo and its events late last year. These threats prompted Nintendo to postpone the Splatoon Koshien National Finals 2023 and cancel their big annual event, Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo.  

According to the reports, the arrested man is a local government official from Ibaraki Prefecture who sent 39 messages through the inquiries form on Nintendo’s website last year that threatened Nintendo employees and attendees at the company’s events. These messages apparently included statements along the lines of, “If you hold Splatoon Koshien etc., I’ll kill people at the venue, so be prepared,” “I’m looking forward to Koshien,” and, “I’ll hit you with a bomb if you increase security. Die!”  

This prompted Nintendo to issue a statement postponing the Splatoon Koshien National Finals 2023, which had been scheduled to take place in December 2023, and canceling Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo, citing customer safety as their top priority. Nintendo Live is a huge event, so its cancellation impacted several of the company’s esports tournaments, namely: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Online Challenge Final Stage, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe World Championship 2024, and Splatoon 3 World Championship 2024. According to an announcement by Nintendo in February 2024, the Nintendo Live tournaments have been rescheduled to April 13 and 14. 

Apparently, the police identified the suspect from information such as his internet history, and are currently investigating the matter further. This is not the first time that Nintendo has received such threats. Back in February 2023, a woman was arrested for sending threatening letters and death certificates to Nintendo executives (Related Article). In addition, other non-Nintendo events were also affected by threats last year. AniLoca, a new anime event that was due to be held in December 2023, was also forced to cancel due to threats of arson and stabbing (Related Article). 

Written by. Verity Townsend based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2024-04-03 21:27 12:12 JST)