A big part of the software development (like sdks and so on) of nintendo is farmed out to Intelligent Systems that is a not so big company in Kyoto (a bit over

A big part of the software development (like sdks and so on) of nintendo is farmed out to Intelligent Systems that is a not so big company in Kyoto (a bit over an 100 person) and the working environment is quite nice according to a friend I had there so I don't think that it's a problem of not being an attractive place to work. Instead of it being a design feature, I think it's more a problem of not having anyone with the required knowledge to make good decision at the top. That said, nintendo as at least a few times listened and promoted people who were at the bottom of the corporate ladder like Yokoi Gunpei so Nintendo might be more flexible than typical japanese companies (like panasonic or sharp...) As for the level of japanese programmers: I have worked in european companies and in japanese companies and there is no comparison between the japanese programmers there and the european programmers I met in the european companies. The Japanese programmers were much worse... In a company I worked in (a big company that is also well known outside of japan) my coworkers who were developing software didn't know what object oriented programming was. Their java code was basically C code made in java with static methods everywhere... Now I've only worked in two companies in japan and worked with altogether about 40 programmers and so maybe it's just me being unlucky but the level really was appalling.