Nintendo Becomes the Latest Gaming Giant to Stop Sales in Russia

2 years 3 months ago

Editor's Note: The war in Ukraine is an ongoing, painful and emotive topic. IGN urges community members to be respectful when engaging in conversation around this subject and does not endorse harassment of any kind.

Nintendo has halted all shipments to Russia for the "foreseeable future", but stopped short of publicly supporting Ukraine.

In a statement provided to IGN, the gaming giant said the rapidly changing circumstances around exporting and selling its products in Russia forced the move, meaning it's not doing so explicitly in support of Ukraine, as many other companies have.

Update: Asked by IGN if the company would be providing a message of support for Ukraine, a Nintendo spokesperson provided the following message: “We would like to express our concern for all those affected by the conflict”.

Nintendo told IGN: "We have decided to suspend shipping all Nintendo products to Russia for the foreseeable future. This is due to considerable volatility surrounding the logistics of shipping and distributing physical goods."

The company also announced on March 7 that the Russian eShop had been placed into maintenance mode, meaning no users in the country could purchase games or other content digitally. This wasn't necessarily in support of Ukraine either, as Nintendo said their payment service had stopped processing Russian rubles, forcing the eShop to temporarily close.

Yesterday, Nintendo also indefinitely delayed Advace Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp “in light of recent world events”.

Both PlayStation and Xbox have halted sales of their consoles and software in Russia. Unlike Nintendo, they did so with explicit messages of support for Ukraine amid the current war.

In doing so the companies have answered a call from Ukraine's deputy prime minister, who asked "all game developers" to temporarily end support in Russia and Belarus.

We have a guide on how to help Ukrainian civilians, which includes a number of humanitarian charities that use donations to provide aid in the country.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.

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