Nintendo sends racist sheep to game journalists

This is the best headline I’ve ever written.

Yes, that is a picture of Baabara from Animal Crossing: Wild World. Yes, to her, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is a battle hymn. You see, Nintendo mailed a copy of Animal Crossing: Wild World with a pre-played save file to several members of the gaming press to allow them to test out a certain feature in Animal Crossing: City Folk which involves transferring save data from Wild World. One of the many ways you can customize your town in Animal Crossing is by assigning new catch phrases to your town’s inhabitants. Apparently whoever played this particular game wanted at least one character to use the n-word at the end of every speech bubble.

Nintendo, as you would expect, was quick to respond to this mistake:

Previously played copies of the 2005 DS game Animal Crossing: Wild World were sent to 14 members of the media to demonstrate the ability of players to transfer items to the new Animal Crossing: City Folk for Wii. We regret that an offensive phrase was included without our knowledge via a wireless function that allows user-generated catchphrases to spread virally from one game to the next. This version is limited to 14 copies created for media review purposes only and is not available at retailers. We sincerely apologize for the incident and are working with media who received the game cards to return them to Nintendo immediately.

To be fair, the word does end with an ‘a’ and not an ‘r’ so it’s most likely meant to be a term of affection. Still, in a game that’s afraid to refer to Christmas by its real name, that word is just a little bit uncomfortable.

MTV Multiplayer