23 ms·
Nintendo has raised its employees base salary by 10%
- hootz 3mo agoAlways a great thing to hear. Well paid employees, good results, and I'm definitely loving their Switch 2 releases already.
- leetrout 3mo agoOff topic: what are you enjoying lately? Most of the games I have bought work on switch 1 but the screen and controls on the switch 2 are better. I regret buying caravan sandwitch because it's so hard to see with my aging eyes but it is nice to play it anywhere. Always curious to hear what others enjoy about it to help me have less regret in my $600 investment in Mario kart
- hootz 3mo agoDK Bananza is wonderful, a masterpiece. Pokémon Pokopia is also really fun as a recurring game you come back to every day or every couple of days to relax and build your village. I'm also enjoying Switch 1 games on it. Pokémon Violet, for example, lagged hard on Switch 1 but runs great on Switch 2.
- Thraway198 3mo agoDK Bonanza is if someone vomited neon all over a WOW clone
- WillAdams 3mo agoWhat sort of games do you enjoy playing? For my part, I use my Switch 2 as an upgraded Switch 1 for all but one game (a franchise I am fond of release a "Definitive Edition Nintendo Switch 2 Edition") and feel as if I got a good value (esp. considering the upcoming price increase). Debating on getting the updated Sports Resort, and wishing that there were more motion-controlled games (esp. miss _Red Steel 2_)
- supermatt 3mo agoI was so disappointed with Switch Sports. It lacked the soul of Wii Sports. Sadly, it seems like Sports Resort is going to be more of the same :(
- WillAdams 3mo agoI rather enjoyed Wii Sports Resort (mostly the flying and archery) --- so long as those are well-implemented, I'll be fine.
- supermatt 3mo agoYeah, although I think it's going to be weak compared to the Wii again due to the lack of an external reference for the controller. The bowling on Wii feels so much better to play because of this (and also has the fun animations that they decide to drop on switch). No doubt archery is going to be similar - your aim wont be anywhere representative of where the remote is actually pointing, just its angle.
- supermatt 3mo agoYeah, although I think it's going to be weak compared to the Wii again due to the lack of an external reference for the controller. The bowling on Wii feels so much better to play because of this (and also has the fun animations that they decide to drop on switch). No doubt archery is going to be similar - your aim wont be anywhere representative of where the remote is actually pointing, just its angle. I sold my switch sports a few months after getting it for this reason. We still play Wii sports (and resort) on the Wii-U.
- vel0city 3mo agoI'm happy Mario Tennis is back with the ability to play actual full tennis matches again. I skipped the last one. The story is kind of meh, but the mechanics of the tennis matches is fun. Its not like I play Mario Tennis for a deep storyline campaign, its for playing a tennis game. Its a good multi-player game. I also have to agree with Bananza. A fun story, good mechanics, and a silly art style and direction. I'm eager to play Star Fox. It seems like an exceptionally good remake. Its been decades since I last played the original, I imagine it'll feel pretty new and yet familiar at the same time. I still do have mostly Switch 1 games to play on it. I don't really mind that. The Switch 2 having pretty much full backwards compatibility is a strong feature to me and not really a con. Better hardware for sure, and some parts of my old Switch was getting worn out after so many years of use.
- mghackerlady 3mo agoUnless you've played it elsewhere, I'd highly recommend person 3 reload
- CM30 3mo agoDonkey Kong Bananza is probably my Switch 2 game of choice. Like it may not be marketed as such, but it's probably somewhere on par with Super Mario Odyssey in terms of game design and mechanics, and has the craziest ending sequence I've ever seen in a video game. It is a really solid 3D platformer, and does to Donkey Kong what Super Mario 64 did to Super Mario Bros/World. The DLC is really fun too, though whether it's worth buying is almost entirely dependent on how much you get into Emerald Rush. Personally I found that mode incredibly addictive for the longest time, though it's definitely not for everyone. As a general rule though, the Switch 2's library is kinda niche right now though. What games/DLC are worth it heavily depends on your taste in games. Cozy/sandbox game? Pokopia could be a good choice. Fan of the Zelda series in general? The upgrades for BotW and TotK are nice, as is Age of Imprisonment. Prefer Kirby? Air Riders and the Forgotten Land upgrade are a good bet. More of a Mario fan? Well, there aren't as many options there outside of Mario Kart, though the Wonder upgrade has been pretty well received, and Mario Tennis Fever is a decent game. Generally you'll find one or two niche spinoffs you'll really get into, though nothing on the level of a big new 3D Mario/Zelda/Pokemon/whatever game.
- StilesCrisis 3mo agoDKB was created by the Odyssey team so it makes sense that it scratches the same itch!
- kevin_thibedeau 3mo agoGalaxy 1&2 have visual upgrades.
- mcphage 3mo ago> Off topic: what are you enjoying lately? I've poured tons of hours into Blue Prince, which is a great puzzle game. Pokopia is fun and charming if you like Pokemon or Minecraft. I've recently been playing Öoo which is a short but sweet "metroidbrania". I played through both Strange Horticulture and Strange Antiquities recently, and liked them both. I played the demo of "Adventure of Elliot: Millennium Tales", and liked the gameplay enough I'll probably pick up the full game, even though the dialog is atrocious. (The voice acting is good, at least).
- buellerbueller 3mo agoCaves of Qud.
- SSLy 3mo agoI am afraid MK World isn't even the best kart racer on NS2. It's Sonic Crossworlds
- wincy 3mo agoPokemon Pokopia has been a surprise hit in our house, I have two kids, but I got into it and spent a ton of time making a perfect little Pokemon village. My kids really enjoy Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. It's really silly but they make all their friends and have them get married and read the news and it's just peak Nintendo goofiness. My kids have also gotten a little older so the mainline Pokemon games have become a thing again, and we've been playing those together. Everything just seems to run better on the Switch 2.
- leetrout 3mo agoMy kid just discovered tomodachi life from a friend and I'm actually going to buy it for her on my switch 1 and give it to her. We've got a summer trip in a few weeks and she will be surprised to receive the game and the system to be all hers.
- mghackerlady 3mo agothe Tomodachi series is really just amazing. I'm not the biggest fan of living the dream (I prefer life on the 3DSs gameplay and think collection on the DS is very interesting), but it's still amazing
- leetrout 3mo agoHave you seen what these go for? A 3ds cart is over $100 now.
- mghackerlady 3mo agoWhat? How? It sold extremely well! Oh well, hacking your 3DS takes like 10 minutes and you need a modded console if you want to play collection in english
- waltbosz 3mo agoTomodachi Life is so much fun. It's the first time I've seen 1990s voice synthesizer tech used in a fun way. And the item designer makes me nostalgic for Mario Paint.
- high_na_euv 3mo agoI thought it is common in big companies to raise salaries by x% every year?
- tyingq 3mo agoWhen it was, it was typically some amount less than inflation. 1-2%
- brettermeier 3mo agoThat's what I think I get... So few, I don't even bother to look how much more it is...
- topgrain2 3mo agoThe worst is when you get a manager who’s either too clueless to realize you’re seeing a pay cut from an “increase” so small, or one who knows but is pretending otherwise. That awkward pause in the comp update meeting when they tell you about the “increase” and seem to expect some positive reaction. LOL.
- StefanBatory 3mo agoCould be worse, mine has promised me salary increase thrice this year. Every time coming up with bullshit issues why it couldn't happen. I am still working on minimum wage (as a DevOps).
- yard2010 3mo ago"You work hard, screw over everybody that you love, hurt, rob, kill indiscriminately and maybe... just maybe, if you're lucky, you become a three bit gangster. It's bullshit. Go to college. Then you can rip people off and get paid for it. It's called capitalism"
- dylan604 3mo agoIf your "raise" is less than the increase from things like inflation, it's not going to be noticeable even if you did look. The concept of cost of living increases is laughable today. Even banks looking at a mortgage application is assuming your salary will increase way beyond what today's raises are. The only way to do that is to jump ship and find a new job, but then you're dinged because your work history is not stable.
- ilamont 3mo agoJapanese Yen is now 162 to USD, the lowest exchange rate since 1986.
- pibaker 3mo agoAnd they are seeing sustained inflation for the first time since 2000. Not a great time to be paid in yen.
- oceanhaiyang 3mo agoFor someone in Japan this is shockingly high! Money doesn’t go far here at all
- seandoe 3mo agoErr does go far, right? Japan is pretty cheap in my experience.
- collinmcnulty 3mo agoThis is largely a function of exchange rates. If you are paid in USD, then Japan will seem cheap in a way it does not for people paid in yen.
- not_a_bot_4sho 3mo agoLiving there with local wages and taxes?
- arkon_hn 3mo agoNot if you don't get paid very much?
- kdheiwns 3mo agoVietnam is even cheaper. The problem is you get paid in a roided up currency and it's a fun vacation for you. The locals get paid awful wages and a single night at an hotel for a typical person here is a whole month's rent for them.
- nly 3mo agoMy British parents went there this year and found it very expensive
- dartharva 3mo agoGreat 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.
- engeljohnb 3mo agoI replayed Luigi's Mansion during a long flight the other day, and my wife looked over my shoulder and went "That game looks cool. Is it new?" This is exactly why Nintendo games tend to have strong legacies. Everyone back then could see realistic graphics just on the horizon, but they weren't there yet. Nintendo knew that the play experience is the important thing, and made art and designs that work within the limitations. Luigi's Mansion, Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, and Pikmin all still look and feel so good.
- tskj 3mo agoInterestingly Wind Waker's art style was its main detractor among critics when it was released, which is wild and incomprehensible to me now. One of my favorite games of all time.
- kipchak 3mo agoPart of this was the Spaceworld 2000 demo creating expectations for a game which looked basically like Ocarina of Time but on the GameCube. Then when Twilight Princess came out people missed the Wind Waker art style and the cycle continued. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNrOHY2HZqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNrOHY2HZqs
- skhr0680 3mo agoYes, Nintendo have themselves to blame for the next-gen OoT hype train. In fans' eyes, they promised but didn't deliver.
- rootsudo 3mo agoThis 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.
- Wowfunhappy 3mo agoHow much does Nintendo of America really do? It's basically localization and marketing, right? And maybe outreach to third party developers? I would imagine they're able to underpay due to the allure of working for Nintendo combined with a lack of actual positions.
- CM30 3mo agoThey do have at least one development studio there, Nintendo Software Technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Software_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Software_Technology They also make quite a few more changes than expected when localising games. Or at least they did in the olden days, where the American versions of games sometimes had different/extra features compared to the Japanese originals. I think some of the localisation team are also regular voice actors for the games, on a worldwide basis.
- Wowfunhappy 3mo ago> They do have at least one development studio there, Nintendo Software Technology. Oh, interesting! The list of games isn't particularly impressive though, a lot of ports and remakes. Compare that to also-US-based Retro Studios, which isn't considered under Nintendo of America from what I understand.
- LetsGetTechnicl 3mo agoRetro Studios is a subsidiary of Nintendo, actually! Not sure how it's structured organizationally, but Nintendo does own it.
- 3mo ago
- epsteingpt 3mo agoI 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-apologizes-0-194415480.html 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!
- Anon1096 3mo ago> In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents No, there really isn't. You're looking at one company that "apologized" as a marketing play but outside of that prices have been increasing with no fanfare for years now. The annual inflation rate has been 2-3% for the past 4 years. It's a lot less interesting to write a news article about that though. https://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/cpi/158c.html https://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/cpi/158c.html
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- Pooge 3mo agoYeah, and the price of rice has increased way more than that. Heat is making me too lazy to look it up so I wonder if it's gotten better in the past year. But Japanese people are very used to price increases. Granted, accommodation is not one of them. Especially if you compare Tokyo to London, Paris or even Geneva.
- decimalenough 3mo agoHave you checked Tokyo hotel prices lately? Thanks to the travel boom they're through the roof as well: the business hotel that was Y10,000 before COVID is now twice that, and Western branded hotels that were Y30,000 or so are now Y100,000+.
- tekla 3mo agoIt 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-president-shareholder-meeting https://www.shacknews.com/article/149817/nintendo-ntdoy-pres...
- mcphage 3mo agoStockholders seem concerned that Nintendo isn't throwing away enough of their seed corn, like all the other major game publishers are.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3mo agoOh no, their poor stock! They should lay everyone off, cut pay, and join the dystopia like everyone else!
- iLoveOncall 3mo agoBefore 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/software-engineer?country=254 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.
- chalupa-supreme 3mo ago100k for entry level roles at one of the most recognizable brands of the world doesn’t seem too bad to me. Then again, I’ve never been to the Seattle/Washington area.
- iLoveOncall 3mo agoBECAUSE it is one of the most recognizable brands of the world it's a bad salary.
- groundzeros2015 3mo ago160-250k jobs? I think no action would satisfy you.
- cautiouscat 3mo agoNintendo 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.
- weberer 3mo agoIts not even like they indiscriminately shut down fan projects either. Just the ones that try to make money. You still have sites like Pokemon Showdown and Advance Wars By Web that have been running for several decades without incident.
- SSLy 3mo agothey indiscriminately shut down any sight of online smash tournaments
- shimman 3mo agoProbably for the best seeing how many literal degenerates and sex pests there are in the scene, what with Nintendo being a family company and all. edit: sorry downvoters, if you want to play with corporations you might want to remove the rapists from your ranks: https://www.ssbwiki.com/2020_Super_Smash_Bros._sexual_misconduct_allegations https://www.ssbwiki.com/2020_Super_Smash_Bros._sexual_miscon...
- bananaboy 3mo agoMy friends and I made a game for Ludum Dare 36 called No Mario's Sky years ago and received a DMCA take down notice. We weren't selling it, but we still had to remove it. Maybe because Mario is 100% a Nintendo property but Pokemon and Advance Wars are co-owned with other companies.
- kipchak 3mo agoAM2R for example was distributed for free and DMCA-ed.
- kittikitti 3mo agoCongratulations Nintendo employees! I've always had great conversations and interactions with your engineers so I think this is well deserved.
- axpy906 3mo ago10% from what to what? Japanese companies are not famous for pay.
- IshKebab 3mo agoYeah without context this could be good or bad.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3mo agoThat'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.
- mothballed 3mo ago[flagged]
- 3pt14159 3mo agoI’m sorry but this comment is hysterical. I have experience with construction and engineering and I shudder to think what type of monstrosity you’ve built.
- mothballed 3mo agoMy grandpa built a similar house under similar level of scrutiny roughly at the same point in life as I did, it was still standing and in good order when he died. At this point it's basically already paid for itself vs rent even valued at $0.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3mo agoNot sure where you live, but in my area -even if it's a great house- it would not end well. We have some pretty heavy-duty local township bureaucrats.
- Marsymars 3mo agoThat’s not historically uncommon though. Like the house I grew up in was a rural house built in ~1890 by the brothers who farmed the land. Of course it had the usual quirks of an old house, but it was well maintained over time and I wouldn’t view it as any kind of “monstrosity”.
- dagi3d 3mo agoI 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.
- bluGill 3mo ago2023 was 3 years ago, so if raises were 3% under inflation they are due for another 10% increase again. I would expect raises were more like 1-2% under inflation and so they won't be due for a couple more years.
- Varcolacus 3mo ago[flagged]
- CuriouslyC 3mo agoAll 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.
- jagged-chisel 3mo agoThe other studios’ investors are winning just fine. That’s all that matters to them.
- 10xDev 3mo agoThis is putting Nintendo on a pedestal. Major Japanese studios in general are consistently publishing great games and increasing hiring count / raising salaries. Switch 2 is also essentially just a spec bump from switch 1 which came out in 2017. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/atlus-to-increase-salaries-and-reduce-fixed-overtime https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/atlus-to-increase-sal... https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sega-is-raising-japanese-employees-salaries-again-three-years-after-its-previous-increase/ https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sega-is-raising-jap... https://gameworldobserver.com/2024/03/06/capcom-salary-raise-japanese-employees-graduate-hires https://gameworldobserver.com/2024/03/06/capcom-salary-raise... https://automaton-media.com/en/news/sonys-game-division-announces-record-high-starting-salary-increases-in-japan/ https://automaton-media.com/en/news/sonys-game-division-anno...
- CuriouslyC 3mo agoI don't think it's unfair to say that Nintendo has some of the highest quality games on average, and probably the biggest cache of top tier IP of any studio on earth. The only studio that rivaled them was Blizzard IMO, and that got corrupted and has fallen to capitalism.
- boogieknite 3mo agothis is a puff piece. the raise was in April 2023
- jessillions 3mo agoGood for them. My colleague used to work for them, said it was the best
- brcmthrowaway 3mo agoWhats the highest paying gane studio? Rockstar?
- charcircuit 3mo agoAnd the weakening of the yen to the dollar reduced the salary by -12% over the last year.
- steveBK123 3mo agoIn Japan, giving your employees a raise is very rare and a sign of great respect.
- robotburrito 3mo agoThe 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.
- Danox 3mo agoGood 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.
- smoovb 3mo agoThe 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.
- smrtinsert 3mo agoA lot of companies seem to not do consistent raises for inflation
- cjblomqvist 3mo agoIn Sweden, there's a fundamental agreement between companies, the state and unions to not have raises follow inflation (as it becomes reinforcing and hurting the rack economy). Now, there's always discussion (you can guess who's arguing what if inflation is high and low...), but overall it seems to work pretty good.
- greazy 3mo agoI never considered the two are linked. Any research or modeling that shows this is true? Is it generalisable to other countries...
- ryan_n 3mo agoStill way better than what many companies do in the US regarding inflation adjustment...
- gretch 3mo agoYou compared “companies in the US” to this 1 thing that 1 company did in Japan. Why don’t you cherry pick the compensation at 1 company, maybe nvidia or openai, and do the comparison.
- pocksuppet 3mo agoAnnualized inflation this year (in the USA) is 10%. I heard Japan is worse. So they only get a 5% pay cut instead of a 15% pay cut? Hooray.
- sokoloff 3mo ago> Annualized inflation this year (in the USA) is 10% Source? I think that's about 2-2.5x the figure that everyone else is using.
- pocksuppet 3mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48489655 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48489655
- sokoloff 3mo agoYour "source" is an editorializing HN submitter who took a one-month increase in prices while the military action with Iran and subsequent oil price shock and multiplied by 12. The BLS (and any economist) knows better than to do that, so you cited the online equivalent of "a dude wearing sunglasses on the back of his hat being interviewed in his pickup truck..."
- tancop 3mo agonintendo is one of the best in gaming for employees and one of the worst for customers. everyone here knows about the copyright and patent trolling but then you got things like 3D All Stars where they made a time limited digital release. not a physical limited edition or a third party rights problem. just decided to capitalize on FOMO at the expense of players. the eshop is filled with huge amounts of slop they dont care about cleaning up, most of it with ai covers and lazy asset flip gameplay. permanent hardware bans that make buying a used switch 2 risky (you dont know if the previous user was a pirate). and they started the whole trend of $80 games by giving other publishers an excuse to charge more because nintendo does it too. then you got insane demands for other devs like that time fortnite wanted zelda skins and even offered to make it exclusive (as in you can only buy or equip it on switch). nintendo said they would only do it if epic made the items invisible on all other platforms because they dont want their characters to be seen on xbox. its not a big deal for the rest of us but it shows how their execs really think.