KYOTO — During a Nintendo Direct presentation that was recorded in Japanese and dubbed over in English, the announcer’s voice reportedly shifted an entire octave when discussing an M-Rated Game.
“We hope you all look forward to the Super Mario Bros. Wonder game, coming this fall!” said the dubbed-over voice of Shinya Takahashi before immediately pitching his tone down. “And coming later this year: Alan Wake. It’s not for fucking pussies.”
The voice-actor in question, Tim O’Leary, shared some insight into the process.
“They really ask a lot from me,” said O’Leary. “You have to have incredible range just to talk about different games coming out on the Nintendo Switch. One second I’m on some farming simulator with magical elves, and then all of a sudden I’m talking about a port of some Xbox game where you cut people’s heads off with a chainsaw gun. I gotta say, I never thought my theater degree would take me here.”
Doug Bowser, the president of Nintendo of America, was confident in his presenters’ abilities.
“We know we throw a lot at our presenters for Nintendo Directs,” said Bowser. “After all, the whole world’s watching them. It’s guaranteed to trend on twitter. Millions of unemployed adults will wake up at 7am just to hear 45 minutes of game announcements for their Nintendo Switch, and we don’t want to let them down more than the world already has.”
At press time, Nintendo Switch presenters were already practicing voice training exercises in preparation for the next grueling series of announcements.
