Nintendo recalls Mario Party 8 in the UK because of 1 word

Mario Party 8 not available for Wii in the UKNintendo Europe has delayed the release of the Wii game Mario Party 8 in the UK. To quote: “Unfortunately we have discovered that a small number of games contain the wrong version of the disk due to an assembly error. We have therefore decided to recall all copies of the game from UK retailers so that this mistake can be corrected.”

Reports suggest that the “wrong version” of the game contains the word “spastic”. In British English, “spastic” is a politically incorrect, and an abusive term, for an ungainly or physically inept person; whereas the word is inoffensive in American English. This is also suggested to be the cause of the original delay of the game a two weeks back. At around that time there was a big uproar in the UK about a woman being insulted after a DS and PSP game from Ubisoft, Mind Quiz, called her score spastic after her son had died of cerebral palsy, which led to that game being recalled.

Mario Party 8 is expected to re-launch later this month.

Update: The fixed version will be released on August 3.