Reggie Fils-Aimé says Amazon once asked Nintendo to break the law

Amazon wanted ‘obscene’ financial support to undercut Walmart.

by Terrence O'Brien

May 3, 2026, 3:24 PM UTC

A photo of the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata and Reggie Fils-Aimé, former president of Nintendo of America, at E3 in 2004

Photo by Susan Goldman / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Terrence O'Brien is the Verge’s weekend editor. He’s covered the tech industry for over 18 years and knows a thing or two about synths.

Way back in the DS days, Nintendo decided to stop selling to Amazon. During a recent lecture at NYU, former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé said it was because Amazon was seeking preferential treatment that would have hurt its relationship with other retailers, and potentially broken the law.

The two sides have since made amends, and you can buy a Switch 2 through Amazon. But for a long time, Nintendo consoles had been largely unavailable on the site. In the 2000s, Amazon aggressively expanded beyond books and tried to undercut everyone on price. According to Fils-Aimé, Amazon wanted to undercut even Walmart and was looking for an “obscene amount of support, financial support.”

While he didn’t specify what kind of financial support Amazon was looking for, Fils-Aimé says he told the Amazon executive in question, “You know that’s illegal, right? I can’t do that.” He went on to say this was part of the reason the company ended its relationship with Amazon:

“Literally, we stopped selling to Amazon, and it’s because I wasn’t going to do something illegal. I wasn’t going to do something that would put at risk the relationship we have with other retailers. But it also set the stage to say, look, you’re not going to push me around. This is the way we do business. And so that’s how, over time, you build respect.”

You can watch the full talk below:

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