EDITOR'S HYPERBOLE NOTE: And here is why I have these Hyperbole Notes. For that time when so little information is available in a press release that background information is required.

Tomodachi Life is the sequel to Tomodachi Collection. Tomodachi Collection was about owning a hotel where Miis you made in the game or imported from the Wii would live inside of this hotel and you could expand the activities they could participate in by listening to them, feeding them, and pestering them with items. You could also play mini games with the Miis. When you made a Mii or imported a Mii, you gave it a personality type and that personality type would cause it react differently to other personality Miis and vice versa. Animal Crossing: New Leaf has eight different personality types for the villagers. Tomodachi Collection had that as well as personality traits based on physical ability. You could also choose how the Miis are related, including if they were "lovers." Miis that were Lovers could get married and divorced. Miis could also get depressed and possibly leave. They could also get a Divorce or Married despite your suggestion for them to not do that. There is a fair amount of "free will" in the Miis in Tomodachi Collection. Tomodachi Collection was not localized because it contained technology similar to VOCALOIDS and there were licensing issues with this. A fan translation patch of the game exists though.

Tomodachi Life removed the ability to force Miis to be lovers in favor of a randomized element and a new element: Children. Children were added to the game as a way of giving people something to trade via StreetPass. A Child would grow up (really quickly) and then decide to stay or leave. If they leave, they will send postcards from the "places they visit." This was a result of the Marriage element of the game. Male and Female Miis could produce children that would be a blend of their personalities and their facial structure, body structure, and so forth. There were more personality types added, more things to do, and so forth. Now, there was a strange glitch that would cause imported Miis from Tomodachi Collection and the Wii to break the rules of the general coupling.

This is where the issue began to get a bit "dicey." In Tomodachi Life/Collection and in the soon to be released version of the game, you can change the genders of your Miis before importing them into the game. If you have a male looking Mii that is a female or a female looking Mii that is male, this is perfectly fine. There is nothing preventing that from happening. However, with imported Miis from the Wii or the original DS game, there was residual data that caused Male and Male Miis to go through the Marriage and Child creation element. This caused a hard freeze in the game and data corruption on the downloadable version of the game. In short, it could cause the game to be unbootable. Also, there was an error where an imported Mii could get married to an already married Mii in the game. This would also cause crashes and data corruption. Nintendo patched the error and several lower news organizations said that Nintendo was "patching out gay marriage." What Nintendo was doing was patching out a data corruption that caused the A+B=C nature of the marriage to become A+A+B = D or A+A=D. The term D standing for Data Corruption and the C standing for Child Character.

But couldn't they just patch it to not crash? The problem is that the routine for Marriage always leads to a child in the new game. They also removed divorce from the game, so a Marriage routine that did not lead to a child ends up crashing the game for some reason. Now, in order to find that, they would have to go into the hard coded parts of the game and then add a second outcome. Which sounds easy enough, but there are other factors to consider in adding same sex relationships into the game.

Let's go back to the personality types in the game. In order to add in one more type of attraction, you have to consider the personality types and their reactions to the new variations of scenario that would take place. Essentially, about half the game would need to be re-written to include the option. It was not an issue in Japan, which is less receptive to same-sex issues, but localization would not be able to add in the option because it would require rewriting about half the game. Same-sex issues in Asia are not anywhere near as progressive as the United States. People who are gay are locked up in Russia, South Korea does not even acknowledge they exist with some people thinking that "gay people" were invented by the media, North Korea executes gay people, and gay marriage is not recognized in Japan. Despite those problems, the exclusion of same-sex relationships in the game may have been more of an oversight than anything else. The Child mechanic is new for the game and Nintendo has never had a problem with including LGBT characters in their games before. The Mother series in Japan, The Legend of Zelda series, and even flagship titles like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing have LGBT characters in them. However, this game did not feature the option when it was created. The surprise localization of this game has raised the issue in the United States. Localization replaces text, sounds, and some images, but a game is usually not completely reprogrammed for a localization. Adding English, Spanish, and French text (For Quebec, Canada) actually increases the size of the game. So, you have an increase in size and no room to do any real addition to the game without Quality Assurance cycles or going back to the original code.

Originally, Nintendo didn't comment on this until a NeoGaf reader decided to start a #MiiQuality push on social media. The NeoGaf reader "Tyeforce" wanted a patch or consideration of Same Sex couples in a future iteration of the game. An Associated Press reporter contacted Nintendo and then compiled a statement based on multiple e-mails between a Nintendo representative and the reporter. The initial response was either badly worded or badly edited by the reporter. The above clarification is a more direct version of the initial response. The problem is that the initial response caused people to say that Nintendo was "anti-gay" or homophobic. It is sad that the game does not feature that option for people who find it difficult to relate to the dating aspect of the game or the procreation aspect. It is especially interesting that Nintendo did eventually clarify their statement, especially since the game has already gone into production and a patch is technically impossible for them to do. The NeoGaf user, Tyeforce, was only trying to raise awareness and was not pushing for a boycott or other such negative actions. It is productive that Nintendo decided to clarify their position and future versions of Tomodachi Collection should include this. For those wondering, Tomodachi Life is a bit like Little Computer People in that you do not have direct control of the Miis in the game. The game operates in real time, like Animal Crossing, and looks to be a lot of fun. I hope that people consider purchasing the game and having fun with it, even though they may need to modify a Mii or two to fit in with the games "dating" mechanic. That is still possible and it's why you'll find videos of "male/male" and "female/female" couples in Tomodachi Life on youtube.

This is just a break down of why Nintendo issued this Statement. The company, DMG Ice, has this policy on LGBT issues: We go to weddings for the cake. If you want to get married, you should be able to do just that. If you are close by, please invite us. We'll take lots of pictures and hope you have an awesome reception with awesome cake. You should be able to get married, adopt kids, get divorced, visit each other in the hospital, add each other to your wills, co-sign on contracts, and claim each other on your taxes. Above all else though, have an awesome cake. Please have an awesome, delicious cake, and save us a piece. Yes. Cake. Cake. Delicious CAKE!