A man has been arrested on charges of forcible obstruction of business after sending a bomb threat to Nintendo's headquarters.

The Minami Police Station of the Kyoto Prefectural Police announced on the 12th that they had arrested a 27-year-old unemployed man from Hekinan, Aichi Prefecture, on charges of forcible obstruction of business. The suspect is accused of mailing a threatening letter to Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto in March, claiming he would bomb the facility. The letter arrived on the 16th of that month, and while police searched the area following a report from the company, no suspicious explosive devices were found.

The suspect has admitted to the charges, and his motive remains under investigation. This is not the first time Nintendo has been targeted. In 2023, a female office worker from Tokyo was arrested for mailing a package to Nintendo headquarters in 2022 that contained a death certificate—with the cause of death and date filled in—and a threatening letter addressed to a company executive.

The most severe incident in terms of scale involved a series of threats spanning approximately three months, from August to November 2023. The perpetrator, a man named Kenshin Kazama, was a local government official at Hitachi City Hall who sent 39 threatening messages through the inquiry form on Nintendo's official website. His messages included threats of murder against participants of the Splatoon Koshien tournament and warnings of bomb attacks, with one note stating, 'I will make you regret releasing such a game into the world.' In response, Nintendo postponed the 'Splatoon Koshien 2023 National Finals,' which had been scheduled for December 2023, and canceled 'Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo' in January 2024. The Kyoto District Court sentenced him to one year in prison, suspended for four years, citing the persistent and malicious nature of the crimes.

All three incidents share the commonality of being committed by outsiders with no direct connection to Nintendo. Furthermore, the motives for these acts remain unclear. The woman who threatened executives in 2022 stated that she had 'no direct grudge' against the company, and Kazama similarly testified that he sent the threats to relieve stress accumulated from losing in the game.

It is also noteworthy that all three cases occurred at a time of heightened vigilance against indiscriminate threats toward corporations following the 2019 Kyoto Animation arson attack. In fact, during the trial for the previous threat case, a deposition from a Nintendo employee was read aloud, stating, 'The Kyoto Animation arson and murder case flashed through my mind, and I was terrified.' Despite the fear that such threats instill regarding actual physical harm, these acts continue to recur. Experts point out that threats targeting game companies are on the rise globally, and large, high-profile firms like Nintendo are inevitably more exposed to such risks.

Similar threats have also occurred in South Korea. In 2023, visitors were evacuated during HoYoverse's 'Genshin Impact' summer festival due to a bomb threat. Other game companies, including Com2uS, NCSoft, and Nimble Neuron, have also been targets of online terror threats, and similar incidents have repeatedly disrupted offline events such as the Dungeon & Fighter Festival. In response, South Korea has strengthened penalties for acts that incite public fear, such as posting murder threats against unspecified individuals, through amendments to the Public Threat Act.