Nintendo has officially denied claims it deliberately pulled products from Amazon in response to issues with third-party sellers, despite the continuing absence of many of its key titles and consoles from the platform.
Earlier this year, pre-orders for the highly anticipated Switch 2 opened at numerous retailers across the U.S.-but Amazon, the largest online store in the country, remained conspicuously absent from the list.
Bloomberg recently reported that the Japanese gaming giant was limiting Amazon stock to prevent resellers from snapping up consoles in bulk overseas and undercutting U.S. prices. According to that report, Amazon even proposed marking products as being sold directly by Nintendo to ensure authenticity, but supposedly the offer wasn’t enough to mend the strained relationship.
However, Nintendo responded swiftly and flatly rejected Bloomberg’s version of events. Speaking to Tom’s Hardware, a company spokesperson said, “There is no such fact.” The company also declined to provide further details, citing confidentiality in its retailer partnerships.
Amazon has also rebuffed Bloomberg’s claims, calling the reporting “inaccurate” and affirming its continued desire to offer Nintendo products directly to consumers. However, it failed to explain why so many first-party titles and Switch 2 consoles are still missing from its digital shelves.
Curiously, there have been some signs of change. Pre-orders for the upcoming title Donkey Kong Bananza went live on Amazon on June 17, making it the first major Nintendo release to appear on the platform in months. Still, other flagship titles like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and the Switch 2 itself remain absent-some listings even redirect to humorous 404 pages featuring a dog named Bowser.
The mystery deepens with each new statement, and the silence around the exact nature of Nintendo’s relationship with Amazon only fuels further speculation. Whether this is about controlling pricing, cracking down on resellers, or something more complex, one thing is clear: for fans looking to buy Nintendo’s newest offerings, Amazon is still not the place to go.