Kyoto police arrest man accused of threatening to bomb Nintendo headquarters

A handwritten bomb threat sent to Nintendo in March pushed Kyoto police into a search around the company’s headquarters, where officers found nothing suspicious. The arrest came on May 12, 2026, when Kyoto police took into custody a 27-year-old unemployed Japanese man reported to be from Aichi Prefecture, with some coverage identifying him as a resident of Hekinan City. Police said he is suspected of forcible obstruction of business, and he has admitted to the charge.

The letter allegedly told Nintendo, “I will bomb you bastards. I have already planted numerous bombs at Nintendo Co., Ltd.” That threat landed with unusual force because it targeted the Kyoto headquarters of a company whose staff already spent the past two years dealing with the operational fallout of similar menaces, including security worries that forced the company to cancel major live events. Police are still investigating the suspect’s motive.

For Nintendo employees, the immediate issue is not spectacle but disruption. A credible threat can shut down building access, trigger police searches, divert management time, and force security reviews across offices that rely on predictable schedules for development, QA, localization, and event planning. In this case, the search of the headquarters area turned up nothing, but the company was still pulled into a criminal probe that could affect day-to-day operations well beyond the initial letter.

The new arrest also lands against a painful backdrop. In the earlier case, police and court reporting said another 27-year-old man sent 39 threats through Nintendo’s website inquiry form between August 22 and November 29, 2023. Those threats helped force the cancellation of Splatoon Koshien 2023 and Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo, and the Kyoto District Court later sentenced Kenshin Kazama to one year in prison with four years suspended. That earlier case showed how fast threats against a visible game company can spill from inboxes into shutdowns, with employees and event staff absorbing the cost.