The 2021 Olympics, taking place in Tokyo, had an opening ceremony with several classic songs from the world of games. At the ceremony we heard music from the series Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Sonic among others… many found Nintendo’s absence strange, as practically none of its games’ music was played during the ceremony. A leaked report pointed to several reasons that made the company cancel its participation.
According to an article by Shukan Bunshun, the Olympics opening ceremony originally planned to feature soundtracks from 8-bit era games (Space Invaders and Zelda were among the games whose music would be played at the event) and would be supervised by the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto. There was even a proposal in which actress and singer Lady Gaga would be replaced, after entering a pipe, by comedian Naomi Watanabe, dressed in a blond wig and red cap (probably Mario’s cap).
Nintendo itself, through Shigeru Miyamoto, would supervise the opening of the event, which would be a tribute to Japanese pop culture… but unfortunately that did not happen. A series of problems involving the pandemic, the change of creative director and controversies involving key people at the event ended up discouraging the company’s participation. To give you an idea, there was a big controversy when composer Keigo Oyamada bragged, in an interview, about having bullied classmates with disabilities, and with 1 day to go before the ceremony the director, Kentaro Kobayashi, resigned after making a joke about the Holocaust that had a very negative repercussion, and on top of that 55% of the Japanese population was against holding the 2021 Olympic Games because of the pandemic.
The report states that this set of controversies and disagreements made Nintendo rethink its participation in the event, ultimately deciding to stay out.
Source:Eurogamer
SavePoint Team
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