Harsh but rules are in place for a reason. Hope he finds his feet.

Can companies even make that kind of contract? Did he reveal any sort of secrets or something? Something is wrong if companies have the power to veto freedom of speech. Has got to be inconstituonal. 

Leaking company secrets is one thing, but simply talking in public is a right of every citizen.

There must be something i am not seeing here. I'm shocked at the number of people who think this is ok an Nintendo is in the right. They just can't be, unless he leaked something. If he did, do tell me what it was.

While I'm admittedly immature in my career, I've never seen this happen ever. 

Unless he spoke about something that breached a non-disclosure, the firing is based on a arbitrary rule. He broke it, but surely an instant termination isn't the only way to punish someone for things they do in their free time.

Most companies will not fire you straight away if the breach isn't to damaging. They will give you the option to save face and walk away (i.e. so you remain employable) within the next couple weeks. If you ignore it then they wll fire you. I have seen many people at my previous companies just suddenly walk away because of such incidents. One guy didn't take the hint and was escorted out. 

Sorry but Nintendo looks like a shit company to work for. If no harm is done, any decent employer would just issue a warning. Good thing that they are slowing retiring out of the console space.

- M, Carl

No, most good companies would just warn you.

In order: Yes, sorta, that's not what freedom of speech means, and that's actually not true.

Yes: these contracts are both common and enforceable.

Sorta: not only did he kind of mock part of the fanbase, and the more rabid portion at that (a no-no for anyone but Reggie, thank you very much), he also divulged information about the internal workings of the company re: localization, decision making, and profitability. Not earth-shaking stuff, but not stuff the company necessarily wants made public either.

That not what freedom of speech means: freedom of speech is a constitutional protection, meaning it applies to restrict the government (and until the 14th Amendment was passed, mostly just the federal government at that). Contractual restrictions are common in many private relationships. Employment contracts are one. Settlements are another. There are also things any follower of video games knows a bit about, like non-disclosure agreements, that are likewise enforceable.

That's not actually true: related to the above, "talking in public" is not only technically untrue (see: non-protected speech), it's also rarely applicable to private relationships. This is actually why we have whistleblower laws: we've crafted limited exceptions to protect whistleblowers from legal reprisals for violating the terms of their contracts. The keyword is "limited": these laws often don't apply even in situations where they clearly should, and this is not such a case.

It's also worth noting that, in many (most?) states, there wouldn't even need to be a breach of an employment contract, as many/most states are "right to work" states, where the employer can terminate any employee for any reason at any time, or even no reason at all, unless the firing is shown to be in violation of a very limited group of exemptions. I'm not familiar with Washington law, but statistically it probably is a right to work state, so even having the unwritten rule would be more than enough.

Freedom of speech does not apply in private organisations, when you join a school or a company you are effectively agreeing to abide by their rules no matter how unfair, provide they within the bounds of the law.  If he had spoken in general public about his opinions and didn't identify as an employee of Nintendo he might have been protected by freedom of speech but not in this instance, a professional forum where he was identified as a representative of the organisation, no chance.

I'm suprised by how naive some people are being in this thread, 'just give him a warning', 'Nintendo are being dicks'. If you work for a big company with a name and brand reputation that they work hard to protect, this kind of contractual clause is standard, at least where I live. It doesn't matter if you leak information or simply say something that is at odds with company philosophy, they have the right to terminate your employement. If you work for that kind of company they generally make the rules clear from day 1.

Can I get a summary of what he said?

This is the same case as Kevin Butler, both breached contract and lost their jobs.