Later today, Nintendo will broadcast its Direct for this year’s E3. Leading up to the event, the Kyoto-based game company has issued a request on its Japanese Twitter account: Do not co-stream our presentation.
“Please refrain from mirroring Nintendo Direct footage and sound during the Nintendo Direct livestream,” the tweet reads. Nintendo will allow simultaneous viewing (reactions, basically) without mirroring—and thus, without streaming sound or footage.
Once the presentation is finished, Nintendo has okayed the uploading of clips, but with the caveat that the use of footage and sound follows the company’s previously released guidelines.
In Japan, Nintendo clearly does not want its E3 Direct co-streamed. It’s unclear if this also applies to North America, and Kotaku has reached out for comment. It’s also not certain if this is Nintendo Japan’s policy for future Directs.
Nintendo’s E3 2021 Direct streams today, June 15, at 9am PDT/12pm EDT, running for about 40 minutes, with a three hour Treehouse stream immediately after. You should be able to watch it all here.
Update: 11:30 AM ET: Twitch has announced that due to these streaming restrictions, it will not be airing today’s Nintendo Direct on its official Twitch Gaming channel, which has been airing versions of conferences that streamers can co-broadcast sans fear of getting DMCA-ed.
“Nintendo tweeted from their official account that co-streaming today’s event is not allowed, differing from years past,” Twitch wrote on Twitter. “While /twitchgaming has permission to air the show, we won’t be airing the event because all creators can’t co-stream.”
This follows a similar last-second announcement about co-streaming from E3 over the weekend, which led many streamers to panic and reconsider their plans to stream the biggest video game event of the year. Fortunately, Twitch Gaming allowed them to co-stream the bulk of this year’s conferences. But now, not even that is an option.
Additional reporting by Nathan Grayson.