According to Nintendo, numerous news outlets misreported an issue related to the Japanese version of Tomodachi Life this past December. A patch issued to Tomodachi Collection [the name of the game in Japan] did not, despite reports, patch an exploit that allowed two men to enter a relationship and, eventually, have a baby.

Loading

In the Japan, some players were creating male Mii characters and switching their gender.

Loading

Loading

The issue of censorship was raised online when Nintendo released a patch to correct “strange relationships.”“There actually was a misconception over what the issue in December was,” product marketing manager Bill Trinen told IGN last April. “There were two things that were going on at the time that essentially were grouped together as one. The first, that there was a patch. And what the patch was fixing was actually a data leak.”Trinen explained that a free tool on the 3DS eShop allowed players to transfer over Mii characters from the 2009, Japan-only DS version to the 3DS game caused a problem. When a player brought those characters into 3DS’s Tomodachi Collection, it caused a data transfer issue that corrupted the save data and prevented people from progressing.“The other thing that was going on was that quite a few Japanese players were dressing up Mii characters,” Trinen explained. “Essentially they would create a male version of a Mii character and assign their gender as female, and that was how the two males were able to have a baby.”The patch did not change the fact that players could do that.It only addressed the data transfer issue according to Trinen. “Because we didn’t have the DS version [in the West], there is no data transfer issue for us,” Trinen said. “So it was actually two separate things that got lumped together into one piece of confusion that resulted in people not quite understanding what had gone on.“From our perspective it’s kind of tough because as a game development company, our primary focus is always looking at creating entertainment and fun and entertaining products,” Trinen explained. “And there’s a lot of decisions that can go into that process. What we try not to do is… well, it would be very easy to look at Animal Crossing and say, ‘well, what wasn’t included in an Animal Crossing, so what’s Nintendo saying about that?’ We’re not really saying anything about anything; we’re just constantly trying to create fun and entertaining experiences.”Trinen said that, unfortunately, Tomodachi Life isn’t designed to be a perfect simulation and, therefore, the line between entertainment and real-life becomes a challenge for Nintendo. “We’ve got to try to find what’s the best way to create this experience and really have a fun and entertaining experience. And for us it’s all about a whimsical world where you bring these people together and you see what happens as a result.”We asked Trinen if Nintendo had made any prior effort to clear up this confusion. “I think, at the time, in Japan there actually wasn’t confusion,” Trinen said. “As it was reported in Japanese, they had an understanding of what the [data corruption] issue was. The other wasn’t an issue. It was just a unique way that people were playing the game.”Trinen continued, “At the time, because the game wasn’t out here, we hadn’t really gotten into the detail on it. And that was primarily because we hadn’t announced that we were working on the game.”Nintendo describes Tomodachi Life as a funny alternate reality to IGN. “It is a difficult thing to understand. Your first impression is really going to be to compare it to an Animal Crossing, or to look at it as a sort of simulation game. But we don’t really look at it so much as a simulation,” Trinen explained. “We look at it really as this sort of living breathing world, and it’s a bit of an alternate reality, where the Mii characters of people you know in everyday life come together to interact and mingle. And the results of it are incredibly funny, with unexpected moments that occur between all of these characters.”

Jose Otero is an Associate Editor at IGN and host of Nintendo Voice Chat . You can follow him on twitter