Friday 07 Jan 2005 - 11:18
Rumours have been circulating on the internet that a former Nintendo President, in answer to a request by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer to buy Nintendo, replied: “hey, Ballmer, why don’t you suck my tiny yellow balls”.
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But former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi never told off Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer during a meeting to discuss a possible Microsoft acquisition of the Japanese game maker, Nintendo said Friday.
In response, Ballmer and Microsoft officials present at that meeting were reported to be "disgusted and making a ruckus," the hoax interview alleged. However, that meeting never took place, Minagawa said. "Everybody in the industry was talking about that and laughing about it," Minagawa said.
That is one of the claims made in a lively but fictitious interview with Yamauchi, purported to be from the February issue of Wired magazine. The interview, which came to Nintendo's attention on Thursday, is a hoax, said Yasuhiro Minagawa, a spokesman for Nintendo.
Yamauchi is retired and has not given any interviews recently, he said.
Among the other claims in the hoax interview is that Yamauchi felt Nintendo's Mario game character, also known as Jumpman, needed to be given a moustache because Italians are "hairy".
“He is Italian, Italians are hairy, he needs a moustache, and so what if some idiots think he looks like Hitler?” Yamauchi was reported as saying.
The interview also claimed Yamauchi joked that the large number of overweight Americans is evidence that the concept of a "free lunch" existed in America, in contrast to Japan where there is no such thing.
The hoax interview also claimed Yamauchi compared the design of Sony's PSP portable game console to a penis.
Yamauchi never said any of these things, Minagawa said.
Digit Staff
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