Legendary Japanese dev goes in hard on Switch 2 leakers: ‘A filthy desire for approval that lacks a shred of rationality—The worst of scum’

Nintendo finally revealed the new Switch 2 handheld console yesterday after months and months of rumours and speculation. While most people just seem to be happy that there’s finally confirmation, one person can’t seem to look past the leaks that led up to its announcement.

Hideki Kamiya, the game designer of Devil May Cry, Okami, Bayonetta, and currently directing Okami 2, has decided that those who leaked the Switch 2 just before its release deserve some eternal punishment (via Eurogamer). “I hope that all of the people who leaked Switch 2 information/those who helped leak it will be cursed for the rest of their lives to always have poop on the soles of their shoes when they get home.”

I can only assume this is said in a kind of jokey frustration, but even so, a curse that plagues people to drag poop through their house every time they come home sounds like a creative and likely very effective curse, to be sure. But he doesn’t stop there.

“The shitty leaker only acts for his own pleasure and self-satisfaction—not only is he not contributing to anyone’s benefit, he is incurring all sorts of opportunity losses and has done nothing to be proud of in front of others,” Kamiya says. “He is the worst of scum, so he should be covered in shit from head to toe and thrown out of the atmosphere.”

New leaks about the Switch 2 surfaced just days before the official reveal. Even if the photos were blurry, they dampened the big surprise a bit. A couple of former PR managers even mused about how the leaks would affect company morale ahead of the launch: “I am 100% sure that they are really mad, to the most severe level” (via GamesRadar).

I don’t doubt that everyone over at Nintendo is likely very upset about that whole situation, but even still, I think Kamiya takes the cake: “These damn leakers are in a position of responsibility where they have access to information that only a very select few know, yet what they do is nothing more than an expression of a filthy desire for approval that lacks a shred of rationality—they are shameful people. So it is not the manufacturers whose secrets have been exposed who should be blamed, but these damn people, and they need to be crushed as soon as possible.”

This is a bit hyperbolic in places—crushed is a strong word—but almost every videogame dev has had to think up ways to counteract the possibility of leaks so I can understand the frustration with the problem.

Just last year, former Bungie lead counsel explained how the studio managed to nail one of Destiny 2’s most infamous leakers. After a content creator leaked some images for clout, some of the devs kept an eye on everyone who had seen the content and managed to line up someone’s icons at the bottom of their screen to the ones in the leaked images. While this stopped the creator from leaking any more content, that doesn’t mean that the devs don’t still have to be careful.

Some of the biggest leaks over the last few years, other than the Switch 2, include GTA 6’s trailer dropping a day before it was meant to be released, screenshots of the next Sims game, Project Rene, and a fumble that saw Sony accidentally leak the whole of Destiny 2’s latest expansion. Long story short, leaks are hard to stop and seem easy to come by so, even with Kamiya’s curse looming, I doubt they’ll stop.