On March 10th, 2022, a couple of weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nintendo announced that it would stop shipping its products to Russia due to the volatility involved with logistics and shipping. The digital eShop store was already unavailable at that point due to issues with payment in Rubles after the sanctions.
Earlier this week, though, a report from Russian media revealed that Yasha Haddazhi, the current CEO of Nintendo Russia, had set up an import company called Achivka in the same headquarters.
Now, Nintendo has provided an official statement to GamesIndustry.biz. On the one hand, they say the Russian subsidiary is in the process of winding down and that they have no affiliation with the local import of Nintendo products; on the other hand, they acknowledge that they are looking to partner with companies to honor repair and warranty services of previously sold products and that Achivka is one such potential partner.
Nintendo has decided to wind down the operations of its Russian subsidiary. It will maintain a minimal presence to fulfill legal, contractual, and administrative obligations.
We are aware that several companies in Russia operate parallel imports of goods, including Nintendo products. Nintendo is not affiliated with such companies and has no involvement in parallel import activities in Russia.
We continue to investigate solutions to honour preceding commitments to our customers in the Russian market. In this vein and a spirit of transparency, we are in advanced discussions with potential suppliers of repair and warranty service for Nintendo products that had already been sold in the Russian market, with LLC Achivka being one such potential supplier.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
