This Nintendo “insider” fooled thousands of followers with fake predictions

(credit: Matteo Ianeselli )

The adorable avatar of the "insider" account that fooled thousands. (credit: Jon Cartwright / Twitter)

Last week, shortly after the latest Nintendo Direct presentation, fans around the web started stumbling upon a seemingly prescient Twitter account called WaddleDeeKnows (named after the ever-present and adorable Kirby enemy). In a series of tweets with an authentic February 7 timestamp, the self-described "industry insider working deep within Nintendo" showed an apparently deep foreknowledge of details that Nintendo wouldn't officially reveal until the evening of February 9, two days later.

Somehow, WaddleDeeKnows seemed to know just about everything about a new Wii Sports and a Super Mario Strikers sequel, as well as specific details about Xenoblade 3 and even "Valve games coming to Switch," all days before the games' official public announcements.

That short track record was enough to get over 2,000 new followers (and countless other watchers) buzzing when WaddleDeeKnows started tweeting about "a few more leaks for the rest of the year" on the morning of Thursday, February 10. That second round of tweets included exciting predictions about coming Switch ports for Goldeneye 007 and Half-Life 2, more Legend of Zelda HD remakes to come, and even "an Encanto game developed by Bandai Namco" that no one had seen coming.

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