Nintendo has made a change to the name of its official channel on YouTube, but as a result, has lost its verified status on the platform. The change was discovered recently and surprised users, though there's a likely explanation for the change.
Nintendo has several different YouTube accounts based on the area that the viewer is from and what language they speak. This particular incident has occurred with the US Nintendo account, which up until this change, was simply referred to as Nintendo on YouTube.
As discovered by Reddit user RevealConscious, the name of the account has now been officially been changed to Nintendo of America from the original name. While there's no official announcement on the change, users were able to verify that this was the same channel based upon its subscriber count and by utilizing the Wayback Machine to confirm its prior status. In addition, the URL is currently the same as it was before. These steps were necessary to confirm, as the verified checkmark on the account has disappeared.
Interestingly enough, the official URL for the account still ends in simply 'Nintendo,' though there's a likely explanation for the change. YouTube recently announced that it was changing the way that channel names on the website work, allowing users to set up a specific handle for their accounts. Considering Nintendo is an international company established in Japan, it actually makes more sense to have each account separated based on its region and language, rather than referring to an English-speaking channel as simply Nintendo.
It's quite likely that the verified checkmark will quickly return, as this is probably just a hiccup with changing the handle of the account. Many users likely never even noticed that the verified checkmark was there, simply assuming that an account with that name and millions of followers was the right one, and for now, that's the case.
In any case, this was a good time for Nintendo to change the name of the account, as the company is closing out a brief lull before the next major release. While Splatoon 3 has broken sales records for the company, Bayonetta 3 is just days away from release at the time of writing, and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are right around the corner in early November. It's likely that the YouTube checkmark will be back by the time one or both of those games releases, so most Nintendo fans will probably never even question the change in short order.
Source: YouTube