Nintendo has raised its employees base salary by 10%

I recently heard that a trip to Popeye's for a family of 3 recently cost $68 in Florida.

In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents (3 yen - source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/japanese-snack-company-apolog...)

The country for better or worse seems to be frozen in time - salaries have not caught up with the heady levels of SV (or even Europe) but neither have rents or prices for common goods.

This is not a judgment either way - but it does make Japanese exports a significantly more lucrative business - if only they could figure out how to sell more of their stuff abroad!

That's very cool. They don't say whether or not it's retroactive, though (I'll bet not).

I am astounded at some of the starting salaries, these days. Kids, right out of school, make more than I ever did, at the peak of my career.

And can't afford a house.

My father never made more than about $40K, but had a house in Potomac, two cars, and a stay-at-home wife.

Money ain't what it used to be.

This does not apply to Nintendo of America, which famously does underpay in the Redmond, WA area and well.. I hear has trouble truly attracting talent in the first place.

The CEO then went on to explain, “We raised base salaries in Japan by 10 percent in April 2023,” adding, “Since then, we have continued to review our compensation system to ensure that remuneration aligns with employees’ demonstrated capabilities, and in April 2026 we implemented further salary increases, including for starting pay.”

If their last raise was 3-4 years ago, this is a simple inflation adjustment, amazing they get good vibe front page Hacker News credit for this.

All the other major game studios are dying and Nintendo is taking care of their employees. Just goes to show that focusing on making great games, being protective of golden goose IP, and making unique hardware rather than just trying to push prettier pixels is a winning strategy.

Nintendo gets a lot of flak for how they treat consumers and how litigious they are. However I get the impression they treat their employees very well in Japan. Like when the Wii U flopped, execs took a pay cut to avoid layoffs.

No company is perfect, but Nintendo seems like an example some C-suites should follow.

For someone in Japan this is shockingly high! Money doesn’t go far here at all

Always a great thing to hear. Well paid employees, good results, and I'm definitely loving their Switch 2 releases already.

I recently watched a video game journalist speaking about this(chicocartera from Eurogamer): apparently this raise happened in 2023. There was an official transcription from an investors meeting at that time where this was covered. It seems there are some subtleties in the translation which could lead to think it happened recently.

Japanese Yen is now 162 to USD, the lowest exchange rate since 1986.

Good for them. Nintendo and Sony in gaming have always marched by a different drummer. They have a successful business plan, and they execute. While their competition over the years have faded away bankruptcy.

10% from what to what? Japanese companies are not famous for pay.

Good for them. My colleague used to work for them, said it was the best

In Japan, giving your employees a raise is very rare and a sign of great respect.

The shareholders must be furious about this. Why not lay off 30% of the team and outsource game development and use ai for the art? That seems smarter.

I thought it is common in big companies to raise salaries by x% every year?

And the weakening of the yen to the dollar reduced the salary by -12% over the last year.

Whats the highest paying gane studio? Rockstar?

Congratulations Nintendo employees! I've always had great conversations and interactions with your engineers so I think this is well deserved.

It mostly seems that Nintendo is trying very hard to prevent any concern over their stock price dropping like a rock

https://www.shacknews.com/article/149817/nintendo-ntdoy-pres...

Great thing about Nintendo is unlike its competitors, they don't go around chasing new tech and business models. All their focus is concentrated on the playing experience - interfacing, fun value, guilt-free hooks etc. In many ways they are more a classic toymaker than a tech firm. This is the reason why they have such a strong following, their product at least is not run by MBAs chasing every chance at a point increase in margins.

I wish there were more such successful "craftsman shops" out there than soulless "service providers" that today's video game companies are.

Before people praise them (a bit late for that I guess given the current comments), Nintendo seems to pay quite poorly their employees in the first place, as you can see from the salaries on https://www.levels.fyi/en-gb/companies/nintendo/salaries/sof... for a company that has a stash of cash and is as successful as they are.

[flagged]