 You've been met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Oh it's okay. Today and today only you can simply press restart and your adventure will begin again by taking in some new amazing Nintendo news right here at Nintendo Prime. We've got Tears of the Kingdom being used as an engineering tool in the real world. No seriously. I just hope they didn't get that sticky green glue all over the damn place. Beyond that, we've got some insight into what it's like working at Nintendo of Japan, specifically in making games from a now-former Tears of the Kingdom developer. And you know what? Let's stick with that Zelda theme because an official Master Sword was unsheathed in Japan and it's waiting for all of us to pull out. Let's start by diving into something I didn't preview. And that's the Norwegian Consumer Council. Wait, why are we talking about them? Damn it, did Nintendo steal all their Omen cake again? For shame. In actuality, I'm sure you guys remember that Nintendo announced their super controversial tournament guidelines about a month back that seemed to have several oversights especially for disabled gamers. While the Norwegian Consumer Council isn't happy with Nintendo and may be pressing legal action against them over it. As was discussed on the Linus Tech Tips WAN show last month, there are serious questions on if a majority of Nintendo's tournament guidelines are even legal in the first place. And eventually, someone is going to need to challenge them to find out. In their Q&A, they have stuff about school tournaments. Yeah, but no one who doesn't go to the school can participate. F**k off! Who cares? Why can't it be two different schools going against each other? Why can't I go to the school and have my friend come? Yeah. Who cares? Yeah. It doesn't matter. None of this is enforceable. Like you can write these things all you want. Like what are you going to do? You can ban me from Smash? What are you even talking about? What gives you the right? What is up with this company? I don't get it. Super bullshit. It seems the first challenger won't be someone running a tournament with a means to defend themselves legally, but rather this Norwegian Government Agency. They are no joke either. Their legal actions against Nintendo in the past have forced Nintendo to allow the cancellation of digital pre-orders across all of Europe, and they also forced Nintendo to offer free repairs of Joy-Cons in Europe affected by Joy-Con Drift. So when this council sees an injustice, they don't just talk. They take action and they get things done. There are a number of fronts the Norwegian Consumer Council sees as a problem. Senior advisor of the council, Thomas Iverson, started with the following complaint. Nintendo sets limits on how consumers, clubs, associations, and other non-commercial actors can use games and equipment. However, I cannot see these terms are presented in such a way that consumers are bound. Terms that set clear boundaries for the right to dispose of what you have purchased must have been highlighted clearly before the purchase of games and consoles is entered into. What this basically means is because these limitations did not exist back when the games were released. It is not legally enforceable to enact these new terms and apply them to the old games in the first place. In other words, no, they can't just tell consumers, clubs, associations, and more how to run their tournaments at all. This contract was just not relevant when the games released. He didn't stop there. Contract terms that give the company the upper hand over its customers will soon be unreasonable and can be set aside. In any case, a unilateral change in how the games console you have bought can be used will quickly come to the fore with both the Consumer Purchase Act and the Marketing Act. In other words, folks, yes, this is going to come before the legal entities that be in Europe. But he's not just mad about how they're trying to impose restrictions on tournament runners. The clauses on game modifications he thinks are entirely illegal as well. One would think that this issue was resolved then, as long as the use does not conflict with copyright. There can be many legitimate reasons for modifying games. For example, modification is often necessary to set up interactivity in connection with speedrunning, challenge runs, or downgrading to older versions. As long as this use does not violate Nintendo's copyright, I cannot see that Nintendo can unilaterally set restrictions on modifications that fall under the free use of the game or console that has been purchased. And this actually makes sense. This is exactly why Nintendo lost all their lawsuits against the game genie back in the day. The thing is, the Norwegian Consumer Console has more to say, but before we get to that, let's talk about the handicap stuff. The Norwegian Handicap Association wanted to add their hat in the ring over the controller restriction issue by saying, for us, it is equal participation that matters. Our children deserve to play and participate just as much as other children. Yes, Nintendo may be getting legal threats on multiple fronts here, as these matters will be brought directly to the European Union as has been done in the past. Anyways, Thomas wanted to add this. I have no respect for such a restriction. Firstly, it will prevent people with physical challenges from playing and in addition, such a closure of the system will be an act restricting competition. I think at one point in all of this tournament restrictions that everyone has agreed on online and at least in some form is that, you know, we really need to make it possible for Handicap gamers to play and this is a massive oversight by Nintendo and one that almost already knew was not really legally defensible, but they aren't just expressing concerns. This is something that looks like it may get a full on European lawsuit going. As Thomas added this, we are following the development and we will take it up with our European colleagues and continuously assess whether there is something to which we should react more systematically. Obviously, we know governing bodies don't always get everything right, but it is nice to see that one in particular is indeed trying to hold Nintendo's tournament policies to the actual letter of the law, which does make most of what they outlined utterly ridiculous in most of the world. You know what's not ridiculous though? Subscribing to the channel, we're trying to hit big goals around here and in return I'll reign some free Oreos on our subscribers. Appreciate it if you would drop a like on the video as well. Now we can get into a more interesting story about a now former Nintendo employee spilling the beans on what it's like to actually work at Nintendo of Japan on a major game such as Tears of the Kingdom. Kochi Miura is an industry veteran artist who's been working on landscape art for Tears of the Kingdom at Nintendo after previous stints at Bandai Napko and Square Enix. He took to Twitter after leaving the company to provide some very rare insight into the inner workings of Nintendo of Japan. Remember, Nintendo of Japan has a crazy high 98% retention rate with employees, so in other words, people just don't really quit at Nintendo. So why did this person? They felt out of place. Nintendo is an incredible company, but I wouldn't likely recommend it to others. It was like a haven for geniuses and superhumans, but for an average person like me, it was hell. However, thanks to this, I was able to realize that I wasn't suited for the role and found the confidence I needed to pursue other goals. This was the biggest accomplishment that working for Nintendo brought me. I don't have a single regret for having aspired to work there, getting the job and then ultimately quitting. Of course, he realized the tweet made Nintendo sound like a hard place to work, so he later clarified that Nintendo is a really good company and the staff were wonderful and he was really amazed that they could continue to produce great products one after another. He also noted Nintendo certainly paid way above the industry standard as well, noting he made less than $40,000 USD per year working at Bandai Napko from 1999 to 2015. He then made only $46,000 USD working at Square Enix after that before getting hired by Nintendo as an environmental artist in 2019. So what did Nintendo pay him? $70,000 USD per year. He noted that normally he wouldn't reveal these salaries as it would make him harder to hire into a traditional role, but he's now working as a freelancer and hoped that this sort of transparency and pay discrepancy may help improve working conditions for others in the industry. Speaking of Tears of the Kingdom, you want to know how amazing that master hand ability is? It's so intuitive. A new engineering course at the University of Maryland is using the game as a tool to help engineering students learn about machine design. Yeah that's right folks, play some Tears of the Kingdom and you can get some college credit. How about that? The course is called The Legend of Zelda A Link to Machine Design, which is targeted at second year undergraduates in mechanical engineering. They are given a switch and a copy of the game to take home with them and they design challenges within the game for the students to complete. They also have to design at some point a transforming, bio-inspired, amphibious robotic vehicle. And a large part of the grade of the course comes down to how well they do in an in-class race of their machines. Whoever completes the race the fastest on both land and water gets an A+. Let's just say I may need to go back to college and become an engineer because this is one class I'll certainly get an A+. I thought I would end the show today talking about something that's going to make Zelda fans drool so much you're going to need a mop and bucket baby. An official replica of the Master Sword by Propoliko was revealed in Japan at the Tamarashi Nation 2023 and yes, this is something that you will be able to purchase. No pricing information is available at this time, but it is officially licensed. Needless to say it looks absolutely stunning as it sits in the same basin we see in the Lost Woods of Breath of the Wild in Tears of the Kingdom. The detailing is incredible. Now we don't know what it's made out of at this time and the details are very sparse beyond the fact that it just exists, but this is one item I know I'll be checking in on in 2024 if and when it becomes available. Though I suspect it's going to be quite pricey because this is a life-size replica and that's going to do it for today's episode. Not as many clever quips and other weird shenanigans today, but we've got plenty in store for next time so I'm going to catch you all in the next video.