Every now and then, game companies' PR and marketing backfires. Sony's 2007 God of War II promotional party featuring a decapitated goat made Fortune's list of the 101 Dumbest Business Moments of the year. Then there was the Wii port of Okami, for which Capcom swiped cover art from gaming site IGN--and forgot to remove the watermark.

This week sees another such misstep, this committed by Nintendo in an effort to promote the interoperability of the recently released Animal Crossing: City Folk with 2005's Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS.
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Kotaku writes"

"Earlier we reported on a copy of Animal Crossing: Wild World that was shipped to game journalists with a racial epithet programmed in the speech patterns of one of the game's NPCs. Now Nintendo responds.

A copy of DS title Animal Crossing Wild World sent out to media yesterday by Nintendo came loaded with most of the game's secrets unlocked, it also included a nasty surprise. When you come upon Baabara, the town's resident sheep, you're greeted with a racial epithet. The word is used repeatedly in your conversation with the sheep. Here's the official statement on the issue from Nintendo:

"Previously played copies of the 2005 DS game Animal Crossing: Wild World were sent to 14 members of the media to demonstrate the ability of players to transfer items to the new Animal Crossing: City Folk for Wii. We regret that an offensive phrase was included without our knowledge via a wireless function that allows user-generated catchphrases to spread virally from one game to the next. This version is limited to 14 copies created for media review purposes only and is not available at retailers. We sincerely apologize for the incident and are working with media who received the game cards to return them to Nintendo immediately.""
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MTV Multiplayer writes: "Video game companies send me games: not surprising. Yesterday, Nintendo sent me a game they played for me: say what?

In my mailbox yesterday was a copy of 2005's "Animal Crossing: Wild World" for the DS out of the shrinkwrap and accompanied with a letter on Nintendo stationery written in the voice of the game's Mayor Tortimer, encouraging me to use this copy of the game to import all of its unlocked items and its character to "Animal Crossing: City Folk" on the Wii.

Nintendo must have known that I'm terrible at "Animal Crossing" and thought I'd need help. So they unlocked a lot of content for me. They appear to have quite accidentally gotten a bit hip-hop about all this. Whoever played this game for me back at Nintendo trained at least one of the characters to greet me with the line [censored here]: 'How are you, N-a?'"
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A copy of DS title Animal Crossing Wild World sent out to media yesterday by Nintendo came loaded with most of the game's secrets unlocked, it also included a nasty surprise.

When you come upon Baabara, the town's resident sheep, you're greeted with a racial epithet. The word is used repeatedly in your conversation with the sheep.

"I almost forgot about you, N--a" "So got any juicy gossip for me, N--a?" "Just thinking about it gets me all excited, N--a."
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Pack your bags and take a trip to the city as Animal Crossing comes to Wii! In a new instalment to the hugely popular series, Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City not only allows players to create their own perfect life in the country, but also introduces an exciting new city area to explore! With many new features such as the new Wii Speak accessory which enables you to chat to other players in the game, pack up your fishing rod and get ready to create your ideal Animal Crossing world as Animal Crossing: Lets Go to the City launches across Europe in...
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November 23, 2007 We hadn't touched Animal Crossing: Wild World for the last 11 months, so we thought we'd visit our town to see how everyone was doing. To our dismay, there were weeds everywhere. Feeling some weird need to see our town in order again, we thought we'd see how long it took to pick them all. It was about 35 minutes, non-stop. But a video of that would be boring, so we've condensed it into 2 minutes and set it to the Benny Hill Music! ...
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Nintendo has revealed that the DS has sold over seven million units across Europe, with six titles breaking the one million units sales mark.

Pet simulation Nintendogs has sold over four million units in Europe, while Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Animal Crossing: Wild World have both racked up one million sales apiece.

Nintendo's mascot continues to appeal, with Super Mario 64, Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros. all enjoying sales of over 1.5 million units in the region.
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Thursday 9 November 2006 To celebrate the launch of Wii and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in the US, Nintendo will be rewarding any Animal Crossing: Wild Worlders who go online between 17 November and 24 November with a super-special Zelda present, according to the latest issue of US mag Nintendo Power. Wild World lovers could be forgiven for feeling shut out in the cold with all the fuss over Wii's upcoming launch but Nintendo's planned treat shows it's still interested in keeping us ...
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Sign on Nintendo's Wi-Fi network with Animal Crossing: Wild World and get a commemorative gift for the release of Twilight Princess!
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Beginning Monday, any Animal Crossing: Wild World players living near a Toys "R" Us will want to head over to the store for Nintendo's Free Download Week event. The promotion, which runs from July 23 through July 29, will enable fans to download six "exclusive virtual gifts" for free from in-store DS Download ...
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