Nintendo

Founded in 1889, Nintendo is a multi-billion-dollar company established in Kyoto, Japan, and has multiple subdivisions outside of Japan. They are well-known for their massive franchise games, such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid, and are positioned as the last company to make software entirely exclusive to only their platforms, often to the detriment of their fans.

Anti-consumer Practices

History against emulation

Nintendo is well-known for their extensive history of combating emulation, from them suing N64 emulator UltraHLE in 1999, to more modern emulators, such as Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu in 2024. Nintendo has also pressured for restrictions to access emulators, such as Dolphin's non-inclusion as a core for the Steam version of Retroarch.

History against hardware modification

Nintendo in the past has sued the creation of hardware modifications, such as the Game Genie and 10NES circumvention which allowed users to enter cheat codes into their games and bypass the security lockout chip to prevent piracy.

De-listing/destruction of access to games

In late January of 2019, Nintendo shut down their first digital storefront, the Wii Shop Channel, and subsequently on March 27, 2023 shut down the Wii U and 3DS eShops. These shutdowns have caused hundreds of games to become impossible to obtain new copies of and for some, additionally play which include Splatoon 1, Super Mario Maker, Pokémon Picross, and more. As of now, over 1,000 digitally-exclusive games can only be obtained via piracy, and a subset requires additional modification to run.

Nintendo Authorized Repair

Covered in Louis Rossmann video, a man had sent in their Nintendo Switch to Nintendo for repair of a broken charging port and was given an estimate of £132 (161.51 USD) to replace the entire motherboard, which would result in data loss and noted screen damage despite the only damage to the console being the charging port and a screen protector, not the screen itself.