Nintendo Clears Up Confusion Regarding 'Gay Marriage Patch' for Tomodachi Life

Following the recent controversy surrounding Nintendo's patching out of gay marriages from their upcoming surreal life simulator Tomodachi Life, Nintendo of America marketing Manager Bill Trinen has released a statement regarding the gay marriage situation in Tomodachi Life.

The controversy that has surrounded the upcoming title started when reports about the Japanese version of the game, Tomodachi Collection, showed players partaking in same-sex relationships, a feature that was apparently later removed from the game by Nintendo. Trinen has explained that the patch was actually to remove a data leak that made progress within the game impossible if players transferred over Miis from the original DS game and that images of same-sex weddings were actually created by Japanese players who created male Miis and then swapped their gender, if not their visual aspects, to female.

“There actually was a misconception over what the issue in December was. There were two things that were going on at the time that essentially were grouped together as one. The first, that there was a patch. And what the patch was fixing was actually a data leak.”

 

“The other thing that was going on was that quite a few Japanese players were dressing up Mii characters. Essentially they would create a male version of a Mii character and assign their gender as female, and that was how the two males were able to have a baby.”

 

“Because we didn’t have the DS version [in the West], there is no data transfer issue for us. So it was actually two separate things that got lumped together into one piece of confusion that resulted in people not quite understanding what had gone on.

 

“From our perspective it’s kind of tough because as a game development company, our primary focus is always looking at creating entertainment and fun and entertaining products. And there’s a lot of decisions that can go into that process. What we try not to do is… well, it would be very easy to look at Animal Crossing and say, ‘well, what wasn’t included in an Animal Crossing, so what’s Nintendo saying about that?’ We’re not really saying anything about anything; we’re just constantly trying to create fun and entertaining experiences.”

 

“We’ve got to try to find what’s the best way to create this experience and really have a fun and entertaining experience. And for us it’s all about a whimsical world where you bring these people together and you see what happens as a result.”

 

“I think, at the time, in Japan there actually wasn’t confusion. As it was reported in Japanese, they had an understanding of what the [data corruption] issue was. The other wasn’t an issue. It was just a unique way that people were playing the game.”

 

“At the time, because the game wasn’t out here, we hadn’t really gotten into the detail on it. And that was primarily because we hadn’t announced that we were working on the game.”

Despite attempts to clear up confusion, Nintendo is still under fire from certain pressure groups such as MiiQuality who are campaigning for the official introduction of homosexual marriage into Tomodachi life. The closest Nintendo have come to an official statement regarding the issue though, can be found within Trinen's comment, where he mentions that Nintendo are not saying 'anything about anything' by leaving things out.

Tomodachi life is due for release international for the Nintendo 3DS on June 6th and has been available in Japan since April 2013.