Nintendo has released a public statement announcing it has severed ties with the website responsible for the Pokemon Sword and Shield leaks. The company has revealed that it will no longer work with the site FNintendo, after it posted images from a pre-release copy of the game.
The Portuguese site posted a number of images that revealed new and unannounced Pokemon, breaking the NDA it had signed in the process. Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have now announced that they will no longer work with FNintendo for its future games, while the site has stated that it has fired the reviewer responsible for the leaks.
Nintendo and The Pokemon Company provided a joint statement to VGC, explaining how they had taken “immediate action” after identifying the individual responsible for the leaks.
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“These Pokémon were leaked by a reviewer for the Portuguese website FNintendo, who had received an early copy of the game for review purposes,” the statement reads.
“Both he and FNintendo failed to handle confidential material, resulting in a clear breach of the confidentiality agreement between Nintendo and the media outlet. As a result, Nintendo will no longer work with FNintendo.”
Nintendo’s decision to cut ties with FNintendo means that the site will no longer receive Nintendo products, nor will it be invited to events held by the company. FNintendo posted a statement of its own, saying that its actions were “a clear breach of the confidentiality agreement” between the site and Nintendo.
“We recognise it is impermissible to break embargo guidelines and we failed to handle the review materials with sufficient care,” FNintendo psoted in its own statement. “We fully respect Nintendo’s decision to cancel the confidentiality agreement between our companies as a result of this breach of trust, and accept that we will no longer receive products from Nintendo, nor will we be invited to attend their events.”
