For decades now, there have been stories that Nintendo ran love hotels back in the day. A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sexual activities. Nintendo did indeed try its hand at a bunch of businesses over the years, and the idea of the company running love hotels wasn’t really questioned, but after doing the research, one person has determined this is nothing more than a myth.
The researcher did an immense amount of work to see what ties Nintendo had to love hotels and it seems just about impossible to dig up anything that connects Nintendo to that area of business. The researcher put together an article detailing their efforts, and went through 20 different Nintendo history books to find any information about love hotels, but the only mention popped up in David Sheff’s ‘Game Over’, which was deemed an unreliable source. Looking at financial information also made the claim dubious as none of Nintendo’s financial documents mention love hotels, and the documentation goes all the way back to 1962 while detailing Nintendo’s many other business efforts in full.
While it is certainly possible that Nintendo simply worked hard to scrub the information from all records,it is far more likely that this was an internet rumor that become an accepted fact.