A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

The so-called Japanese consultant that Ubisoft and The New York Times used to attack gamers over Assassin’s Creed Shadows turns out to be an employee of Sweet Baby Inc.

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

In a most recent hit piece run by The New York Times that appears to have been done in collaboration with Ubisoft, the outlet’s Zachary Small cited a so-called Japanese consultant and translator who claimed that criticism of the game was being done by individuals in the West using translators and that the Japanese people were not upset with how the game not only features Yasuke as a protagonist, but that he’s depicted as a samurai.

Hashimoto told The New York Times, “It was people in the West who were upset with seeing Yasuke as a samurai.” Small added that Hashimoto explained “that many of the negative online comments written in Japanese appeared to have been roughly translated from English.”

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

The narrative that Hashimoto, Small, and Ubisoft were trying to spin was outrageous to begin with given that Small had written just two paragraphs ahead of his citation of Hashimoto that Ubisoft “attempted to assuage concerns about the game’s authenticity, apologizing in a lengthy statement for promotional materials that it said had bothered some Japanese audiences.”

Even before this, Small noted, “The inclusion of Yasuke was the primary complaint, but observers also pointed to the presence of Chinese architecture and period-inappropriate flags. The controversy became so heated that a small right-wing political party in Japan formally asked the government to comment on what it considered historical inaccuracies.”

If it was just Western people why was a Japanese political party requesting an investigation into the game and why did Ubisoft issue a so-called apology to Japanese gamers?

Yasuke executes an innocent man pressed into a fight in Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

Nevertheless, it’s been discovered that Hashimoto was an employee of Sweet Baby Inc. from February 2020 to April 2023 as noted by his own LinkedIn profile.

Kazuma Hashimoto on LinkedIn

READ: ‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Art Director Responds To Elon Musk And Others’ Criticisms Of Game’s Creative Choices

Not only is Hashimoto a former employee of Sweet Baby Inc., but he’s an activist journalist whose articles are featured at Polygon, Siliconera, Them, and multiple outlets owned by GAMURS Group.

Mark Kern aka Grummz shared one article, Hashimoto wrote on Medium where he criticized Animal Crossing: New Horizons by “acknowledging Japan’s history of colonial rule.”

 

Earlier this year, Hashimoto also wrote an article at Them titled “How Gay Can You Be in Dragon’s Dogma 2? An Investigation.”

It is unsurprising that Ubisoft and The New York Times would use Hashimoto as a so-called expert to attacks gamers. It’s an old play the access media uses. For example, Amazon Prime Video previously used this play in the lead up to the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1. However, instead of using The New York Times, Amazon went to Vanity Fair and writers Anthony Breznican and Joanna Robinson.

The duo launched their attack on gamers, “When Amazon released photos of its multicultural cast, even without character names or plot details, the studio endured a reflexive attack from trolls—the anonymous online kind.”

Charlie Vickers as Halbrand in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Then they cited a woman named Maria Rios Maldonado, who they described as a Tolkien scholar. However, she is anything but. Rather she was a PhD student at the University of Glasgow who “is interested  in ethics, feminist theory, and encountering the Other in Tolkien’s works.”

She also happened to be “the Equality and Diversity Officer for the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic.”

Morfydd Clark (Galadriel) in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), Prime Video

Next, Vanity Fair used Maldonado to attack Tolkien fans and imply they are racist for simply wanting a lore accurate adaptation.

She questioned, “Obviously there was going to be push and backlash, but the question is from whom? Who are these people that feel so threatened or disgusted by the idea that an elf is Black or Latino or Asian?”

Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor and Robert Aramayo as Elrond in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), Prime Video

The tactic did not work for The Rings of Power as The Hollywood Reporter’s Kim Masters reported in April 2023 that 63% of individuals who watched part of the show’s premiere back in 2022 did not complete the show.

She wrote, “While Amazon, like other streamers, provides only limited data — and internally, it held information even more closely than usual on the series — sources confirm that The Rings of Power had a 37 percent domestic completion rate (customers who watched the entire series).”

For those outside the United States, the completion rate was higher. Masters shared, “Overseas, it reached 45 percent. (A 50 percent completion rate would be a solid but not spectacular result, according to insiders).”

Dylan Smith as Largo Brandyfoot, Markella Kavenagh as Elanor ‘Nori’ Brandyfoot, and Megan Richards Poppy Proudfellow in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), Prime Video

It is unlikely to work with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot already revealed the game is unlikely to be the best selling Assassin’s Creed game of all time.

Barclays’ Nick Dempsey asked him, “When you talk about it being the most ambitious, are you hoping for it to be the best selling Assassin’s Creed game?”

Guillemot replied, “At this time we can say we expect [Assassin’s Creed] to be among the high sellers of the company so far.”

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

The game’s pre-orders do not look good either. Craig Skistimas aka Stuttering Craig, who owns and hosts the Side Scrollers Podcast shared that a retail insider informed him that the game is selling less than 1 copy per store.

He wrote on X, “My insider told me that, as of this morning at their nation wide big box chain, Assassins’ Creed Shadows has less than 800 pre-orders combined for Xbox & PS5 company wide.”

He added, “They have over 900 stores. That is less than 1 preorder per store. YIKES.”

On the PlayStation Store, the Ultimate Edition of the game, which costs $129.99 is 16th behind New World: Aeternum, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Silent Hill 2, Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns Expansion, and Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO.

The base game is even further down the list in the 21st place behind Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed, Throne and Liberty, and Sonic X Shadow Generations. The gold edition sits on the second page in 30th place.

A screenshot of the PlayStation Store pre-orders taken on September 19, 2024

What do you make of this revelation that Hashimoto was a former Sweet Baby Inc. employee?