It’s no secret that both 2023 and much of 2024 so far have been littered with news stories about how gaming companies are laying off people left and right. Just last week, we had such a story, and more are undoubtedly coming. Some of the big names that have had this happen within their umbrellas include Xbox, Sony, The Embracer Group, and so many more. It’s truly sad to see this happen to so many people, and it makes us look for companies who aren’t doing layoffs in any meaningful way. As one insider notes, Nintendo is that shining light in the dark gaming world.
That insider is Stealth, who decided to look once again at the shareholder meeting summary from last month, and found something very interesting within its details. Specifically, he found out that Nintendo currently has 7724 employees. That’s a lot of people, but not the detail we’re looking for. Right after the reveal, he noted that in the last fiscal year, The Big N went and hired over 400 new people! That’s a lot of people!
As Stealth wisely notes, while everyone else out there seems to be “restructuring” or laying off people left and right for “business health reasons,” The Big N is out here trying to hire people and expand its company even more.
Some might argue that companies like Nintendo can’t just “lay off people” because of Japanese law. However, that only applies to companies within Japan’s borders. When Sony laid off workers earlier this year, it didn’t affect its main hub in Japan. Instead, it targeted its branches in Europe and other places so that it could cut costs. The Big N didn’t do that once in the last fiscal year.
In fact, the only “restructuring” they did in the last year that we know about was for the Nintendo of America game testing department where they didn’t necessarily layoff people, but work things around to set things up for the Switch 2’s arrival, and they even said that the contractors, not employees, who may have been released from their contractors may also get asked to come back as full-time employees. That’s a huge difference from what the rest of the people were saying/doing.
The company’s growth isn’t just tied to the success of the last fiscal year but also to the impending arrival of its next console. They likely hired more people to help make the transition to that new gaming generation simpler and start making games for it.
Either way, Nintendo continues to show what happens when you properly run a gaming business and make great games due to that.
