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.

[Killjoy3000]

Go multiplatform.

[KonsoruMasuta]

Bad idea. See Sega for example.

[cactusjack]

sega's choices was go multi or go out of business. i think they made the smart choice

[rambi80]

Erm, Sega just posted a decent profit. It took a few years to adapt, but they are doing ok.

[Captain Qwark 9]

being multiplat isnt segas issue. developing and releasing mediocre games is. its not like its impossible to make a near perfect multiplat ( see the new tomb raider ) its just a matter of putting in the time and effort. a quality mario would sell like hot cakes on all systems.

plus even sega gets it right every couple of releases. their racing game and sonic generations are both very good

[Misaka_x_Touma]

go home you are drunk

[jcnba28]

I commend Iwata for not firing staff and taking a huge pay cut from his own salary instead. Most CEO's would just fire x number of their employees without hesitation. Iwata actually cares about the company he runs and the people who work there.

[Killjoy3000]

You Nintendo tards are just being nostalgic. You know you want a super HD next gen Zelda just as much as I do, quit with the denial.

[GenericNameHere]

Of course not. 3DS be printing dem money. They're doing fine with 3DS and other merchandising. Just the Wii U is bad.

[qcjoe]

How about marketing your Wii U and explaining why people should upgrade to it? No we need a 99.99 Wii mini to confuse your customers more. Im sure that would make them some money.

[adorie]

They're going to discontinue the Wii anyway. I always thought it was moronic to call their newest console The Wii U as I saw it only as a decision to attempt to piggyback off the Wii's success.

[4lc4pon3]

they discontinued the wii only to make a Wii Mini. Instead of innovating or fixing the issue with the wii u sales they blew money and time screwing with this so called Wii Mini.

Nintendo really needs to sit down and come up with a game plan cause the wii u at this point is killing them with dull sales. I had a wii u at launch and tho it was fun it was over priced & so weren't the games.

Like mass effect 3 you could get it used on the 360 for $15.00 at gamestop it was $59.99 on the wii u. No thanks

[Kalebninja]

yea there commercials are just retarded they dont show off the consoles and the dont even show the games it shows them off screen and focuses on the people playing them...

[cactusjack]

thats like saying sony shouldnt change the vita and just continue trying to pursued people to buy it, hate to be captain buzzkill but if no one is buying your product, cramming ads in people faces is not going to fix the problem.

[Dan_scruggs]

For as much as people bitch about the slavish nature of other companies like EA and Team Bondi that swell the number of employees to immense sizes only to have massive layoffs as soon a game ships. You'd think that people would be praising Nintendo for continuing to be true to the business practices and employee loyalty that has kept them going for more that 30 years.

Instead people scream about how stupid they are and how they are doomed and need to make Iphone games and go multiplatform. Yet they still have the highest selling piece of gaming hardware in the entire world. And the Nintendo Wii completely trounced the competition for it's entire life cycle. There comes a time when Nintendo should just trust their instincts and do what they do best. Make great games and ignore everyone that thinks that isn't the point of being in this industry.

[eagle21]

After all these gaming years who is still around and kicking? NINTENDO. Give them some credit. Apple doesn't even make games...lol. Why should I care about gaming with them? MS will never get my money. I think Nintendo and Sony will make it the longest. EA won't.

[thehitman]

You make some points with no valid context around them. Almost every studio lays off people around the time of a game completion. Probably any person in the industry would tell you that not everybody is needed during all processes of making a game. When those people are not needed their contract is up and they look for work on another project etc. To make it seem like EA and Team Bondi are the only companies that do that is point a finger where one should not be be pointed at. A lot of people in the gaming industry are not on permanent contracts.

Also I dont think Nintendo needs to go multiplatform but they definetly need NEW ideas. They need NEW studios they need to expand they need to get with the times and stop letting MS and Sony beat them in terms of technology. They need to advertise to every audience. When the company first started donkey kong mario star fox zelda metriod were their main franchises. Now its just mario, zelda, metriod. They dont have any new good IPs to replace the ones they lost. They dont have any good multiplatform support because the image Nintendo stuck themselves in doesnt appeal to the core gamer. Yes the wii sold very well but that was at a cheaper price point and also if you took a demographic of the sales it wasnt to mostly actual gamers. It was a lot of moms etc buying the system for Wii Fit. Even Nintendo execs will admit that Wii Fit was the best selling bundle they had and sold the most systems. Now we all know how much of a fad trying to get in shape is. It's like getting a gym membership in january, yet in the Wii case people bought the system and didnt use it more than a week or so and never touched it. My aunt has one never even bothered with it lol... Now the reality of Nintendo situation sets in when they tried to make a Wii 2. There was no reason for people to upgrade because they already got the wii for what they wanted and core gamers never wanted the wii because it didnt appeal to them. Nintendo didnt acknowledge this problem which is why they are suffering right now. Bone headiness and lack of vision.

P.S. I use to be a hardcore Nintendo fanboy up until the PS2 so I am not biased against Nintendo. They just have lost sight on what the gamer of today wants, which is not 10 different versions of mario.

[ozstar]

First post, always a winner on N4G!!!! (sarcasm)

[Killjoy3000]

It's an opinion, no need for the slander.

[KonsoruMasuta]

It's a terrible one.

[Evil_Abed]

Slander: you are using it wrong.

[bitboi]

isn't it amusing people want them to go multi-platform so they can play their games, but hate on them and always talk crap about'em....

[XisThatKid]

I don't think people want them to play them but going multiplat is just the logical step when cutting your losses and staying in the industry. Honestly we still could see great things happen to some franchises if another company can give it's revision now I'm not sayin make a Mario FPS but if the right studio had the chance I may have a remote interest in playing a Mario game even for Wii U or X1 or Vita or PS3 or PC etc.

[Becuzisaid]

Hopefully because he's not a part of Nintendo's future

[Auron]

dude seriously needs to go back to programming. He's not prez material.

[ajax17]

Denial is the most predictable of all human responses.

[cactusjack]

reality is going to hit nintendo like a wreckingball.

look what sony did, they had low revenue, what did they do, they cut their workforce, shutdown offices worldwide, cut manufacturing costs. reshuffled executives and upper management and now they are coming up on top.

if nintendo is going to live in fairytale land, reality is going to be ugly for them.

[mii-gamer]

that explains why Sony has a terrible credit rating and in knee deep with debt, and lets not forget they had to sell their headquarters to get some money in the bank - Sony is in such a good position >.>

http://www.businessweek.com...

And yet nintendo is swimming in truckloads of cash made from the Wii and DS, they are free of debt,they have the best selling dedicated gaming console in the market for almost two years straight, has the two highest selling console of the past year 8 years, its software is still selling in the multimillions (ala Pokemon X&Y, Animal crossing, Mario) - the reality is really ugly - poor nintendo - swimming in mountains of cash

Fact ellude N4g users lmfao

[Misaka_x_Touma]

and still posting a yearly and quarterly loss. Right Sony doing so good lol.

[meganick]

That's commendable, especially considering that certain big companies like Activision and EA cut staff even when they're raking in huge profits just out of pure greed.

[ThePsychoGamer]

"Nintendo won't fire staff in order to cut costs"

Well that sounds noble, though honestly it a dangerous and idiotic mind set to have for someone running a company.

[GoPanthers999]

Advertise, sell your console. Or you will need to close down Wii U and go handhelld and 3rd party. Wii U was too early, underpowered and lacked games. Should have launched this year with a big lineup and advertising to kids, and they could have ruled their target market. Too anxious to sell hardware.

[ozstar]

Nintendo will make their own phone LONG before they sell their prize bull to the competition. Does nobody recognize this?