Tomodachi Collection – controversial removal of same-sex marriage explained by Nintendo

By Stephany Nunneley

Nintendo has added context to the Tomodachi Collection: New Life controversy which arose last year, when a patch issued purportedly removed the ability to have a same-sex marriage between male Mii characters.

According to Nintendo, this was indeed a part of a game breaking bug, and never an intentional relationship option to begin with.

“Same-sex relationships were not possible in the original software,” a Nintendo representative told games writer Wesley Copeland. “Two developments occurred that led to some misunderstanding about this.

“First, as a result of a mistake in comprehension of Japanese, [westerners] misinterpreted Japanese reports and fan activity and thought same-sex relationships were possible. This occurred because they saw Japanese fans posting game screenshots of male and female Mii characters, where female Mii characters were designed and clothed in such a way that they looked male.

“Since these explanations were made in Japanese by the Japanese fans who posted the images, the Japanese people do not have such a misunderstanding.”

Basically, players dressed their Miis in the opposite gender’s attire. This would make a female Mii dressed in male clothes appear male, thus, her Mii marriage to a male Mii would appear to be a same-sex coupling.

Nintendo said the ability to do this was part of a game breaking bug, and the reason for the patch.

“Acritical bug occurred in the original Japanese version of the game which made it impossible for the player to continue the game,” Nintendo said. “When Mii characters were imported from a Wii console, or the previous game in the Tomodachi Collection series on Nintendo DS into the Nintendo 3DS version, it could lead to scrambled Mii data within the Nintendo 3DS version.

“This could result in different Miis being randomly assigned to existing in-game relationships, such as already married Mii, or as just one other example, giving the appearance of same-sex relations.

“Because this bug caused the inability for the player to save the game data and continue the game, we released a patch.”

Tomodachi Collection, without the New Life subtitle, will be released in Europe and North America in June, and like the Japanese version, will not contain the option to marry a Mii of the same gender.

Thanks, Nintendo Life.