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On the possibility of adding Nintendo games and achievements

KGBc00L

Member
I reached out to Nintendo to acquire gaming activity data. (see separate post for iOS on the same matter.)

It took 234 hours to get a response from Nintendo legal, although they did apologize for the delayed response. I should add that I had to ask for help from a subsidiary to make them aware of my request. They currently only have mail-in as a method for data transfer, at least so it seems from the reply, where they asked for info for verification purposes. The data they required for validation of identity revealed that they probably have no system in place that makes it easy for them to neither validate requests nor extract game activity data. An API from Nintendo on gaming activity is probably years into the future, requiring better system integrations. System integrations are most often driven by CRM needs, something which Nintendo has very ambitious plans for. A lot of information is already integrated. This include all accounts from previous systems, and they have an earning system for purchases and usage. Their CRM needs are mainly focusing on merchandise, and developing a broader product portfolio including theme parks. Third party developers will greatly benefit from their current initiative as well, as long as they are able to centralize game specific metrics. This would be especially useful for DLC development, from which usage information is very valuable. It seems that they will be able to make a system with interesting usage info within their current initiative, and that there some day will be a usage API for developers, and possibly a public API as well. You can read their corporate management policy briefing here, and draw your own conclusions.
 
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KGBc00L

Member
It has now passed 655 hours from my first contact with Nintendo Legal, and I haven't got any data yet. Eight pieces of communication back and forth, just to reach the dedicated team. Maybe I am the first one to ask, and the team is being assembled. If so, the first thing they would do, is probably to ask themselves what constitutes personal data, and where they can find such data, how they are going to present it, at what granularity, and which aggregations are appropriate for returning a balanced and useful answer. The sheer time they need for gathering and delivering data is shocking. During Furukawa's (President of Nintendo) quarterly policy briefing on November 5th, he stated on his 42nd slide that they would make data available, without any specifics other than the foundation is the Nintendo Account. This was mentioned in relation to building good, lasting consumer relationships. In other words, CRM. This initiative is among those that are mid-to long term. Seems to me that they need to escalate this to short term, if they do not intend to be in breach of any GDPR regulations. In fact, they will be in breach as of tomorrow if they do not explain why it takes so long.
 
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