Nintendo on the amount of female employees working in development
This information comes from the Q&A portion of Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing…
Female gamers are growing in number year after year, but what is the proportion of female employees in your hardware and software development departments?
Takahashi: There are many female developers in the software development departments. Especially, there are many design works involved in developing software, and very high number of females among our designers. Many of them have children, and we have created an environment to work with comfort even for those who have children. I think that it is a very good workplace where women can participate actively and find satisfaction in their work.
Miyamoto: There are also many females actively involved in development. The director of the Animal Crossing series is a woman, and there are many female designers working actively. When I had chances to look at other development companies in Europe and the US, they give the impression that theyʼre overwhelmingly male-dominated. Compared to companies like that, Nintendo has a lot of female developers energetically working.
Shiota: This is a common issue in Japan that there is not a high percentage of female workers in engineering professions like hardware development and systems development. And itʼs true in our company that compared to software development, the percentage of female workers in hardware development is low. However, Nintendoʼs work includes approach to unique technologies, so I believe the proportion of female employees could potentially change in the
future.
