Nintendo are vulnerable to attack from lots of different angles because they are different and successful. Some of the criticism is justified, some isn’t. Their (some would argue previous) competitors in Microsoft and Sony are too irrelevant in the console gaming space for anyone to care this much about what they do.

If you really want to fixate on club names for some reason, you can take in Wrexham AFC, AFC Bournemouth, AFC Wimbledon, Barrow AFC, but I don’t see the relevance myself.

AFC stands for Association Football Club lol

A nickname? You just said it was a widespread term for football. The other person is asking you why, if it was so widespread, almost every single professional club throughout Europe went with football instead.

Too close to home?

You are ignoring the bit where this was a private conversation. They wouldn’t need to laugh along with jokes at their expense because, in the context you are discussing, they would never even be aware that the jokes were made.

Is this a copypasta?

Because their entire poltical and world view is based on identity politics. They cannot simply say “that joke sucked” and move on, they have to make it into yet another virtue signalling exercise and lecture everyone else because that is the behaviour they associate with being a “good person”.