Nintendo

Nintendo Released the Nintendo Power Podcast

~ jen

Nintendo of America has launched the Nintendo Power Podcast. Those of us who recall flipping through the Nintendo Power magazine back in the day, in search of the latest news about Nintendo’s games, will probably want to check out the new podcast version. One of the things Nintendo does extremely well is evoke nostalgia for their products.

Nintendo of America released the very first episode of its new Nintendo Power Podcast. With Nintendo Power Podcast, Nintendo employees, developers, and special guests discuss the world of Nintendo – from Mario to the Legend of Zelda, and everything in between.

The first episode of the Nintendo Power Podcast was released on December 20, 2018. In the debut episode, host Chris Slate looks back at the Nintendo Switch system in 2017 with Kit Ellis, co-host of Nintendo Minute, and Damon Baker from Publisher and Developer Relations at Nintendo of America.

Host Chris Slate then discusses the development of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with the game’s producer, Mr. Eiji Aonuma and director Mr. Hidemaro Fujibayashi.

The second episode was released on January 25, 2018. Following the announcement of Nintendo Labo, host Chris Slate discusses what it’s like to build Toy-Con with gusts Krysta Yang, co-host of Nintndo Minute, and Nate Bihldorff, Senior Director of Localization at Nintendo of America.

The group also recommends games they’ve been enjoying, answers listeners questions, and takes this month’s Warp Zone game quiz.

The Nintendo Power Podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud and YouTube and is coming soon to Google Play Music.

Nintendo Fires Employee for Appearing on a Podcast

~ jen

PartTime Gamers Podcast logoThere have been situations where a person has gotten fired after posting an unfortunately worded tweet or an unpopular rant on Facebook. I think most of us are aware that what a person posts on social media can cause that person’s employer to fire them. Podcasts, however, have been mostly exempt from this type of scrutiny…. until now.

Forbes reported that Chris Pranger was let go from his job at Nintendo after the company discovered that he had appeared on a podcast. Pranger worked for Treehouse, a localized division of Nintendo.

Chris Pranger appeared on episode 76 of the Part-Time Gamers podcast. The co-hosts are Neil Jimenez and Matt Lane. Forbes reports that the two of them have 30 Twitter followers between them. This relatively small podcast ended up getting a lot of attention because of the interview with Chris Pranger.

Gaming websites picked up some of the things that Pranger said and commented on them. Apparently, that was how Nintendo discovered that one of their workers talked about the company on a podcast. As a result, they fired him.

I think the key concept to take from this for podcasters is that podcasts are no longer a safe little space that your boss will never discover. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should stop podcasting. Instead, it means that you should probably check to see what your employer’s rules are about discussing things about the company on the internet.

What about the guests that you want to interview? There’s no way for you to know what, exactly, their employer’s rules are about sharing work related information online. It is up to the guest to figure that out beforehand. In general, though, if your guest works for a gaming company, it is probably not a good idea to push them for more information than they can give.

The interesting, and perhaps scary, thing about this situation is that it does not appear that the co-hosts of the Part-Time Gamers podcast tried to pull information out of Chris Pranger. The problem could be that Pranger needed Nintendo’s permission to appear on the podcast, and did not realize it. Overall, this incident could be the sign of things to come with big employers who want to control everything that their workers say about them online.