Nintendo CEO’s refusal to lay-off staff goes viral following industry-wide cuts

26 January, 2024

Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata

Following a large number of lay-offs across the gaming sector, fans have been sharing the outlook of former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata.

Iwata was president of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015 and oversaw both the Nintendo DS and the Wii.

However, he was also CEO during the turbulent Wii U era of Nintendo, which was considered a flop by many. Following the failure, he took a 50 per cent pay cut while other executives reduced their salaries by 20 per cent.

Speaking about the decision in 2013, Iwata said: “If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease. I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world.”

“At Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo’s business in the long run,” he added.

And that outlook is currently being praised across social media. “Satoru Iwata being mentioned a lot right now shows you how badly the industry is crying out for someone, anyone on the executive level to actually give a damn about the staff being ground up at a rapidly increasing rate,” wrote one fan.

“Video game executives should be shamed off the streets. Booed loudly at every opportunity. Makes me think of the example set by the apparently unimitable Satoru Iwata, cutting his own executive grade wages before pushing ground level workers out the door,” added another.

“How about instead of firing 500+ people you cut some fuckin millions from the top positions and save some jobs,” said a third.

It comes after 1900 members of Activision Blizzard, Xbox and ZeniMax staff were laid off yesterday (January 25), just months after Microsoft’s £57billion acquisition was approved, while Riot Games laid off over 500 members of staff and cancelled development on all League Of Legends spin-off titles earlier this week.

According to reports, Xbox boss Phil Spencer is paid an annual salary of $10million (£7.8million) while former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick earnt an average of $77,306 (£56,310) an hour in 2022.

In other news, tickets have gone on sale for You Meet In Malta, an immersive festival that will celebrate tabletop role-playing games.

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