Steve Ballmer ate my balls?

January 6, 2005 9:05 AM

Hiroshi Yamaguchi to Steve Ballmer: Suck My Tiny Yellow Balls • Now that he's retired and, er, mellowed, the former Nintendo CEO has a lot to say about Japanese business culture, Western business culture, and the gaming industry.
posted by dhoyt (30 comments total)

This was posted to Fark, and I think the general conclusion was that this was some kind of The Onion-esque joke.
posted by unreason at 9:10 AM on January 6, 2005

Classy, dhoyt. And did you mean to link to an all-Spanish page?
posted by rushmc at 9:10 AM on January 6, 2005

rushmc, the article is in English if you scroll down.
posted by unreason at 9:12 AM on January 6, 2005

It's bogus...


posted by Dr_Perhaps at 9:13 AM on January 6, 2005

Indeed bogus. Depressing when Fark catches this before we do, isn't it?
posted by FormlessOne at 9:15 AM on January 6, 2005

'Course, I've been known to fall for a bogus article or several...
posted by FormlessOne at 9:17 AM on January 6, 2005

Classy, dhoyt. And did you mean to link to an all-Spanish page?

Huh?

I got it from here two days ago. What difference does it make it the rest of the page is in Spanish? I was linking to the interview.

I guess I didn't go over it with a fine-toothed comb, but why would I assume it was bogus? Is it?
posted by dhoyt at 9:27 AM on January 6, 2005

This story has been floating around gaming boards for a while now--it's bogus.
posted by Prospero at 9:28 AM on January 6, 2005

FormlessOne: Indeed bogus. Depressing when Fark catches this before we do, isn't it?

Heh. Guess what I found in the fark thread:

elevationlord: Voramyr, is it really fake?

Yeah. It was debunked 2 days ago at (of all places) 4chan.org

posted by Gyan at 9:29 AM on January 6, 2005

Real or not, I can't read this without picturing Yamaguchi wearing an ice bucket, ala Brando in Island of Dr.Moreau, on his head.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:30 AM on January 6, 2005

What a drama queen.
posted by veedubya at 9:30 AM on January 6, 2005

Yeah, it is.
It's been around the loop a couple times already.

On preview, yeah.
posted by Count Ziggurat at 9:32 AM on January 6, 2005

veedubya: Has to be the funniest thread I've seen in awhile here.
posted by FormlessOne at 9:41 AM on January 6, 2005

Gyan: Figures. That's what I get for not running it to ground. :grin:
posted by FormlessOne at 9:43 AM on January 6, 2005

veedubya, I demand a fifty-comment long apology for your homophobic slurs, at which point I will decline to believe your apology is valid or honest anyway. Please commence sending me long-winded apologetic emails immediately.
posted by u.n. owen at 9:43 AM on January 6, 2005

Sorry, guys, I just found this. Oh well. Wishful thinking that an interview would be that silly or wanktastic.

'Course there's always this one.
posted by dhoyt at 9:45 AM on January 6, 2005

CR*PT*STIC
posted by pemdasi at 9:55 AM on January 6, 2005

Could a moderate either delete this post or add something to the effect of "satire"? We don't need to be spreading misinformation.
posted by aerify at 10:21 AM on January 6, 2005

I'm glad I read this before I found out it was fake, I laughed so much. The image created in my mind of that meeting with Ballmer was great.

Though if you want to read a (real) funny interview with someone in the Japanese games industry, read this interview with Tomonobu Itagaki.
posted by bobo123 at 10:25 AM on January 6, 2005

December 28, when this was posted, is the "Massacre of the Innocents," which is the Spanish equivelant to April Fool's Day.
posted by revgeorge at 10:35 AM on January 6, 2005

I guess I didn't go over it with a fine-toothed comb, but why would I assume it was bogus? Is it?

Um, did you read it?


Could a moderate either delete this post or add something to the effect of "satire"? We don't need to be spreading misinformation.

As far as I know, mefi has only one moderator, and posts are rarely (to the point that I've never seen it happen) edited. Anyway, anyone with half a brain can see that this is satire, and helarious.

----

Not that it could ever be real to begin with, but, how would Yamauchi know all these american cultural refrences ("i love lucy") and not throw in any japanese ones.
posted by delmoi at 11:29 AM on January 6, 2005

Wow, I TOTALLY thought it was real. Detecting satire is apparently not one of my strong suits. The aggressive nature of his responses was surprising, but reasonable (i suppose, although that canadian comment was out of whack). Dangit, I SOO wanted it to be real.
posted by eurasian at 11:32 AM on January 6, 2005

Anyway, anyone with half a brain can see that this is satire, and helarious.

It's impossible for me to read criticism like that and not hear it in the voice of the Comic Book Guy.

In any case, I didn't make assumptions whether it was real or not--I posted because I thought it was funny, that people hadn't seen it, and if they had, they might have some backstory on it.
posted by dhoyt at 11:59 AM on January 6, 2005

Satire or no, Yamauchi is a nut. Nothing in this article would be out of character for the man.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:59 AM on January 6, 2005

I thought it was posted as satire. It is pretty funny, especially because this sounds like an interview with a Japanese executive in the games industry, except slightly exaggerated. But I think it treads the line of plausibility pretty carefully.


But if you definitely want to know it's fake, read Yamauchi's comment about disks in the Virtual Boy. The Virtual Boy had cartridges, the Famicom Disk System had disks and was a modification of the Famicom (NES). I love debunking an article through a fanboy analysis. Of course, now someone is going to tell me that Japanese Virtual Boys had disks. But it certainly didn't in its US incarnation.


On preview: Like Faint of Butt said.
posted by Gnatcho at 12:03 PM on January 6, 2005

Anyway, anyone with half a brain can see that this is satire, and helarious.

Actually, when I showed this to someone who was familiar with Nintendo's history and knew who Yamaguchi was, he said "Oh yeah, that sounds like Yamaguchi all right."
posted by bobo123 at 12:04 PM on January 6, 2005

That middle paragraph should have been enclosed by
recovering fanboy
/recovering fanboy

But I didn't pay enough attention to realize it was taken out.
posted by Gnatcho at 12:05 PM on January 6, 2005

oh thank god! I mean, nintendo really DOES push the borders, and is incredibly brave in so many of the things it does. So for the leader (former) to be like he is in the article, it really didn't set off any alarm bells.
posted by eurasian at 12:06 PM on January 6, 2005

Obviously bullshit.

I don't doubt that the gentleman in question might hold some or all of the opinions mentioned in this article, but I have never read about a Japanese person voicing his opinions in this fashion. I've gotten the impression that, to the Japanese, there's nothing questionable or controversial about Japanese superiority -- it's simply an established fact, unnecessary to state.
posted by bshock at 2:52 PM on January 6, 2005

I too desperately wanted it to be true.
It's just so...perfect.
posted by nightchrome at 5:17 PM on January 6, 2005