Nintendo Wants Your Health Information But Doesn’t Want You to Know Why
Gaming companies want to gather as much information about their customers as possible for the end purpose of making more money, but Nintendo is the only one that wants to know more about your personal health. But it’s not for the purpose of advertising. In fact, why they want this information is not stipulated at all in their Privacy Policy.
Privacy regulations online is a murky territory. Different regions, countries, and even states in the US have different rules regarding what type of information can be collected and how it may be used. Still, navigating the legalese in which these policies are written is not easy and often written in ways that are open for interpretation.
While this policy doesn’t mention any other health data that it collects, including the word “may” implies that it could be anything as video and audio interactions are also monitored by Nintendo. Any health-related information mentioned by a Nintendo device user during an interaction with another user is essentially up for grabs.
This particular Health Information clause has been in the company’s Privacy Policy since at least 2023.
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It’s All About Protecting IPs And Managing User Behavior
Nintendo updated its Privacy Policy as recently as May 5, 2025 to include a couple of clarifications regarding what will be monitored from now on. And it’s the same old story of trading privacy for security.
“We clarified that we may collect, monitor and record audio and video of your chat sessions with other users to provide a safe and secure environment for certain of our services,” Nintendo writes in the summary of changes to its Privacy Policy.
The Japanese video games and consoles company has spent decades building a brand that targets children. This beckons the question of which services Nintendo provide that are so dangerous to their target audience that it requires user interactions to be monitored in this manner.
What The Competition Asks For
Looking at Nintendo’s biggest competitors in the handheld device industry, SteamDeck, ROG Ally X, PlayStation Portal, and Lenovo Legion Go, none of them go to the lengths of asking for their users’ health information. However, ROG Ally X makes it abundantly clear that the company ignores any Do-Not-Track settings its users may activate.
Nintendo doesn’t go into any detail about their approach toward DNT settings.
Nintendo’s Quality of Life Initiative
Back in 2014 Nintendo ran a quality of life initiative which included going as far as seeking a patent for a device that would monitor sleeping patterns, but it wasn’t linked to the Pokémon Sleep app, which is published by the Pokémon Company, and is still available today.
Nintendo does, however, have five Switch titles listed as health & fitness games, none of which include walking.
