Nintendo Recalls ‘Offensive’ Game July 17, 2007
Read more Consoles , Entertainment , Games , Software , Wii
Nintendo has pulled all UK retail copies of the Mario Party 8 game for the Wii, due the appearance of the word ‘spastic’ in the translation. The official information refers to the appearance of an offensive word:
"Unfortunately we have discovered that a small number of games contain the wrong version of the disk due to an assembly error," reads a statement from the company.
According to the good folk at Spong, the offensive word is contained in this sentence:
“Magikoopa magic! Turn the train spastic! Make this ticket tragic!”
Overkill? I understand why the kid-oriented game would make family-friendly Nintendo want to stay clean but it’s hardly up there with the Hot Coffee fiasco or the recent Manhunt 2 ban, now is it?
Of course, maybe Nintendo has learned from Sony’s mishandling over the Manchester Cathedral spat that the best thing to do is to act fast, over-react if necessary and take the financial hit before the media has a field day and Tony Blair weighs-in on the topic.-Martin Lynch
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
RSS Feed
Comments
I swear Gordon Brown is Prime Minister now, not Tony Blair???
"I swear Gordon Brown is Prime Minister now, not Tony Blair???"
Duh!! The article says Tony Blair, not PM Tony Blair, and if you check the date on the story that refers to Tony Blair's comments you'd realise that he was PM at the time.
Good, it's an out-dated term used in an offensive manner. My brother has cerebral palsy and I didn't find people calling him a spaz charming and funny. it would be "tragic" if Nintendo didn't recall the product. It's not so much the term but the context.
Also I hear the game sucks anyway. It's probably time Nintendo stopped before they reach double digits and rethought their tired party game.
This is worse than hot coffee etc as this is actually offensive..
Oh god, not only is Mario Party's gameplay tired and dated, so are its developers....
But surely if something has gone 'spastic' it means its gone erratic or irregular. They're talking about a train here not a person. People are too easily offended these days - they're tuning us all into paranoid wrecks afraid of using the wrong word in case we upset someone.
lololololol
"But surely if something has gone 'spastic' it means its gone erratic or irregular. They're talking about a train here not a person. People are too easily offended these days - they're tuning us all into paranoid wrecks afraid of using the wrong word in case we upset someone."
----------------
Agreed!