Nintendo won’t fire staff in order to cut costs, Iwata doesn’t see a dark future for the company
Nintendo’s R&D expenditures are up, but sales are down. With the company adding on roughly 1,000 staffers over the past four or five years, an attendee at Nintendo’s financial results briefing Q&A asked about a possible reduction to the workforce.
This isn’t something that president Satoru Iwata is considering. Iwata pointed out the common ups and downs in the video games business, and feels that things will improve. As a result, he said, “Restructuring the workforce is not the first option we consider even when cost cutting is required.” Iwata also mentioned Nintendo is taking this approach “because we do not see a dark future for Nintendo.”
If you believe that there is no possibility of Nintendo’s results improving, then you would be right about it being necessary to review the structure of the workforce and the company itself to match the scale of the business. However, I believe that there are upward and downward swings in the video game business, that Nintendo has the potential to be a larger-scale business, and that in order to achieve that potential, good developers, localization capability and the ability to sell overseas are necessary. We need a company with a lot of muscle, but a company that also has no excess fat – one that makes smart spending decisions. Restructuring the workforce is not the first option we consider even when cost cutting is required. I would like you to understand that this is because we do not see a dark future for Nintendo.
