Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé said Amazon once pressed Nintendo for preferential treatment that could have hurt ties with other retailers and crossed legal lines. He said he rejected the request, telling an Amazon executive, "You know that’s illegal, right? I can’t do that." [1]
Fils-Aimé said Nintendo then stopped selling to Amazon for a period because he was not willing to do anything illegal or endanger relationships with other retailers. He also said, "Literally, we stopped selling to Amazon, and it’s because I wasn’t going to do something illegal. I wasn’t going to do something that would put at risk the relationship we have with other retailers." [1]
The account comes from a recent lecture at New York University, where Fils-Aimé revisited the dispute and said Amazon sought "an obscene amount of support" to undercut Walmart. The report says Amazon in the 2000s was expanding beyond books and pushing hard on price as it tried to beat rivals. [1]
Nintendo consoles were largely unavailable on Amazon for a long time after the clash, according to the report. Fils-Aimé said the companies later made amends, and Nintendo's Switch 2 is now available to buy through Amazon. [1]
