OMG Nintendo.com

Okay, settle down and get a drink. The way this story has complicated itself over the past day is both elaborate and hilarious. It was about a month ago that Greenpeace castigated Nintendo's environmental policies in its Guide to Greener Electronics, which this blog duly covered.

This was such a high priority for Nintendo that it took about a month for the company to issue a statement on the matter, through major industry news site GameDaily. That's right, it didn't actually merit its own press release, and Nintendo seems to have no idea what the Guide to Greener Electronics even is.

Perhaps this implied dismissal infuriated Greenpeace a bit...

Actually, judging by the tone of its response, it seems to have driven them into a frenzy of internet rage. They reference sending communications to Nintendo about the guide, but also feel the need to explain what the hell it is for Nintendo's benefit in the response.

The Greenpeace ranking criteria score companies on what they are doing beyond what is required by legislation. This is not a law enforcemen ranking Guide - we are looking for environmental excellence.

We expect all a company's products to be compliant with the EU's RoH (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronic products) Directive globally - as a minimum.

Greenpeace finishes off their increasingly-ineloquent rant by hawking their Clash of the Consoles site, which is about the ecological dangers posed by video game consoles. Note that the site uses Kratos as the mascot for the PS3, even though there... are no God of War games on the PS3. Good jorb, guys.

The video must be seen to be believed-- it's one of the most amateurish, ugly, and insulting promotional pieces I've ever seen. It's so stupid, it borders on being kind of awesome. Still, if I had ever given money to Greenpeace, realizing it had been spent on producing this hideous thing would leave me extremely angry. It humiliates their cause and establishes them as deeply out of touch with whatever audience they're trying to persuade.

They seem to want a takeback policy in place for consoles similar to the ones for mobile phones, which are genuinely disposable in a way that consoles aren't. Policies for disposing of busted consoles might be fine, but most Nintendo products are designed to work for decades and keep functioning even if run over by tanks. They have some points about the dangers of using dangerous toxins in manufacturing, and that's... really their only one. Which they also present stupidly, and then beg the internet to promote for them. Genius.

This is, frankly, the kind of thing that makes me want to go start an oilfire in a wildlife preserve. Be sure to check out Greenpeace's Q&A page, which contains the following gems of idiocy:

Q. Have you tested the actual chemicals contained in consoles?

A. No. So far we've based our findings on information provided by the companies themselves. But just like laptops, mobile phones and TVs, game consoles are made of components known to contain brominated fire retardant (BFRs) and PVC. Greenpeace has tested the toxic content of laptops from Acer, Apple, Dell, HP, Sony and Toshiba and mobile phones such as the iPhone.

Q. So is Greenpeace getting into the 'machinima' business?

A. We decided to use machinima genre as the way to get our campaign message across. We hope gamers will help us push game console makers to improve their environmental policies and introduce greener and more energy-efficient products. We think manufacturers should take full responsibility for their products when they become waste and introduce products which are free of the most hazardous chemicals.

Greenpeace, 'machinima' does not even mean anything close to what you think it does. Until you can figure out that much, don't expect gamers to side with you on much of anything.

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