Owner of Nintendo Switch 2 forum forced to deny conspiracy theory that they're a secret Nintendo of America marketing plant

Mario
(Image credit: Nintendo)

The owner of an unofficial Nintendo Switch 2 forum has denied a theory that he's a Nintendo employee running the forum as a marketing campaign.

Last week, a user took to the Nintendo Switch 2 subreddit, claiming that the forum "is run by Nintendo of America." Their post, which was eventually deleted from the subreddit, suggested that the user that founded the forum back in 2021 was actually a Nintendo employee. They have a handful of theories to back up their claim, including; the fact that the subreddit is named 'Nintendo Switch 2' when original expectations were for something called the Switch Pro; the fact that the subreddit's owner also owns the subreddits for several other ideas, including both 'Switch 3' and Nintendo's new alarm clock; and the fact that the owner's account was only a few months old when the Switch 2 subreddit was first registered.

The real kicker, however, is that the owner made a post in the wake of the Alarmo reveal that featured a screenshot of an official Nintendo of America tweet. In that screenshot, however, you can see the ability to "view post engagements" - a tool only available to the owner of the Twitter account behind the post. That was enough to light the spark behind this theory - how would the owner be able to see that option if he wasn't a Nintendo employee?

The post didn't last long on the subreddit before being taken down, but that caused further issues as some felt it validated the claims being made. That, in turn, drew a response from the owner, who posted "Did you know that I work for Nintendo? Because I didn't." Pointing to the ridiculous Alarmo-themed artwork on the subreddit and the silly posts elsewhere on his account, he also reminded users that he's already told them he's a college student.

The owner also explained his reasoning for deleting the conspiracy theory post, saying that it goes against Reddit's anti-harassment policies. He also says he deliberately included the Twitter engagement stats as a joke, copying the button from one of his own posts. In a tweet elsewhere, he says "I did think maybe a few people would think it was real but I didn't think I'd get an actual conspiracy thread followed by an actual mob."

Sadly, whether or not the owner of the Switch 2 subreddit works for Nintendo, we're still none the wiser about the console. Nintendo has spent the last several months telling fans it's not planning to show the console off during various Directs and livestreams, and all we really have is vague titbits about some of the games that might come to the platform after launch. I guess there's still a few months to go before 2025, right?

Huge Game Freak leak reveals Pokemon source code, unused designs, Switch 2 details, and unannounced Gen 10 games.

Ali Jones
News Editor

I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.

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