"I told him, 'Yeah, of course I know about Wario64. Wait a second —are you him?!'"
Eccentric developer Goichi "Suda51" Suda, the founder of Grasshopper Manufacture and creator of No More Heroes, claims to have met the person (or one of the persons) behind the beloved Wario64 X (formerly Twitter) account. If you've been a gamer in the age of social media, then perhaps you've availed yourself of the savings and fantastic deals for which the mysterious account is synonymous. Wario64 uses an inverted image of Suda51 as his profile picture, and their relationship spans back over a decade, which is where this tale begins.
Chronicled by PC Gamer, Suda51 let slip the fascinating (if you are the terminally online type) tidbit slip while doing interviews for the upcoming release of Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered. The outlet took the opportunity we would have, asking Suda51 what it's like to be the face of quality video game deals (Wario64 frequently posts dozens of times a day to their more than one million followers). To this, Suda51 said he likes to think he met Wario a long time ago, at E3, back when that was still a thing:
"I probably met him about ten years ago at E3. I’m pretty sure it was actually him. Anyway, he came up to me and asked me a question about what I thought about Wario64. I told him, 'Yeah, of course I know about Wario64. Wait a second —are you him?!' and he literally ran away. So I’m pretty sure it was the actual dude."
Pulling at this mesmerizing thread, PC Gamer notes that back in 2013, around the time of the alleged encounter, Suda51 publicly accused Wario64 of being a bot. Back then, there was speculation that Wario64 was a writer for the now-defunct outlet GameTrailers, but to this day, the mystery continues. As recently as 2022, a poll on the popular gaming forum ResetEra asked whether users thought Wario64 was one person, multiple, or some robot collective. Some 56% of respondents said they believe the legendary account is "one entity, Wario64 is all surrounding, never-ending, eternal, sent to us to preach great deals".