Nintendo Russia hasn't had the best year, with the CEO Yasha Haddaji making headlines in January when he lost his temper on an official live stream and was then accused of violent behaviour and harassment in the workplace.
Fortunately, this Nintendo branch has ended the year on a much happier note. As part of a special giveaway tied to the animated film Frozen 2, Nintendo Russia surprised families in attendance with brand-new Switch bundles. It reminds us of those big giveaways Oprah used to do, where everyone in the audience gets a gift.

Are you surprising anyone with a Switch this holiday season? Comment down below.
[source gonintendo.com]
Comments 32
Guess they deserved it for sitting through Frozen 2
Hopefully they can get rid of their terrible CEO soon
Thanks for watching a mediocre movie. Now go actually have some fun.
Yeah, but it's not all good news. These people still have to live in Russia.
Figure there are 300 people in the theater and the Switch costs $300 (and at-cost it must be less, the big N never sells hardware at a loss) so that's $90k total max. They get all this good press for what I assume is well less than a typical ad buy.
Smart move.
@andyg1412 oof. I didn't think the movie was as good as the original but it wasn't terrible.
Next time someone says Sora can't be in Smash because Disney would never allow it, BOOM
@patbacknitro18
Maybe not in Smash, but I think we'll see Sora on Switch soon enough. Especially with a certain set of remasters on XB1 with no release date in early 2020, I imagine a January/February Direct would be the perfect time to announce the release date and the Switch version.
Good call, since Nintendo is still considered to be a kids’ console here and the sales are better than last year but still leave much to be desired.
As someone who loves magical girl anime I owe the original Disney's Frozen a lot of thanks for helping be the inspiration for Go! Princess PreCure one of the best PreCure shows ever made a perfect 10/10 and it will be celebrating its 5th Anniversary next year along with HeartCatch PreCure! celebrating its 10th Anniversary as well. Personal note the picture avatar you see before you is my personal favorite main character of that anime is Kirara Amanogawa a.k.a. Cure Twinkle.
Wow, that's really cool!
Did each person get a Switch or just each family?
That's nice.
Those that leave a comment about Russia in a bad manner, please tell me your country so I can leave a bad comment about your country as well.
"As this film is going to be as awful as the first one, here's a switch to play on instead." - Nintendo Russia
Elsa for Smash confirmed
Russia ain’t so bad after all 😊
From Russia with love
@Cosats is it even a bad place to live ? We just hear bad news over here all the time. Don’t trust the government or media any more
@sandman89 it’s not bad, trust me)) the only really bad thing right now is that there is no snow and it’s the middle of December. But I think we can pull through)
Now! Which movie do I have to attend to or what plane to get so I can have my free Switch??
@sandman89 as someone who lives in Moscow I have to say that it's quite livable, but then Moscow is vastly different from the rest of the country
You omitted the part where the social networks later exploded with butthurt over the fact that a lot of these consoles promptly ended up on the local Craiglist equivalent with posts of "why didn't I get one for free" or equivalent.
@sandman89 bond,james bond lol sorry I had to say it lol
I guess Russians do love their children too.
@Cosats Yeah isn't it strange people having instant negative reaction just because it happens in Russia? I have newsflash for you guys. Common russians are just like any other people anywhere else (well each nationality have their personalities but y'know). Russians are also very family-centric so I am sure this was big yay!
@DrDaisy The announcer and the title of the video says every family gets one. I think it would be overkill if, say, a family of four got four Switches!
@Noelemahc As someone who lives in the rest of the country, I can assure you it is pretty livable, too. Although everyone has their own standards!
@sandman89 Russia is a very beautiful country with beautiful people. I am sure most of us, Europeans, know that.
@Cosats not sure we do. There is confusion out there created by the media
They still didn't fire their jerkweed CEO? 🤔
In Russia...
Just joking, I am happy for the people!
@Prizm Why would they fire him? There was a ton of good stuff he did for Russian players. Quite a lot of information about "Yasha the tyrant" was fake as well - there are some people in the Russian Nintendo fandom that are so hungry for drama that they would often even make up stuff just to demonize all of Nintendo Russia. These people are ungrateful. Despite all the PR campaigns, like the Nintendo Guardians program and the Level Up Days, as well as the regional pricing for all Nintendo games (each €60 Nintendo game costs €53 incl. VAT in Russia), all Yasha gets is negativity and filth from the players. Not many people understand that, and you sure don't.
@Hagemaru Or maybe because they’re overexposed? Most people don’t look for something to hate for the sake of it.
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