Former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé disclosed that Amazon executives pressured Nintendo to provide illegal financial support in the late 2000s to undercut competitors like Walmart. Speaking at a recent NYU lecture, he explained how this led Nintendo to halt sales to Amazon. The revelation sheds light on the long-standing tensions between the two companies.
During a lecture at New York University on or around May 2, 2026, Reggie Fils-Aimé recounted a meeting with an Amazon executive during the Nintendo DS era. Amazon sought substantial financial backing from Nintendo to offer the lowest prices on video games, even below Walmart's levels. “You know that’s illegal, right? I can’t do that,” Fils-Aimé told the executive, according to his account. “Amazon was looking to get bigger into the video game space… they wanted to have the lowest price out in the marketplace, even lower than Walmart.”This pressure prompted Nintendo to cease selling products to Amazon. “Literally we stopped selling to Amazon,” Fils-Aimé said, “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.” He added that the decision helped establish mutual respect over time.The bad blood persisted into recent years. Last year, as Nintendo launched the Switch 2, pre-orders did not appear on Amazon while available at rivals. Nintendo first-party games have often been unavailable on the platform or had pre-orders canceled, amid speculation over third-party sellers undercutting prices.The Nintendo DS and Wii were the company's best-selling hardware at the time, while Amazon expanded rapidly from books into a broad retailer in the 2000s—except for Nintendo products.
