Games

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

That one is always misleading. It's a known Japanese corporate move. As the article says, called "hansei". Culturally regarded as an empty public gesture done exclusively to save the company's public image. It works as a PR move, and it obviously did here, since it happened in 2013 and people still talk about it.

But, it actually does nothing financially, and usually none of the money saved goes anywhere. Nintendo avoided layoffs because they hoard liquidity. Have done so since the 80's. Their revenue could collapse and they could lose money for a decade and still not reach bankruptcy. That is far more unique to tech corporations than halving executive's pay. It is what actually has been protecting Nintendo from their failures. They still exploit and abuse employees just like every other Japanese corporation.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml -3 points 3 days ago* (1 child)

That one is always misleading. It’s a known Japanese corporate move.

Doesn't make it misleading, it is something that happened. I never read Sony did this before. Which other company did that, other than Nintendo?

But, it actually does nothing financially, and usually none of the money saved goes anywhere.

Where do you get that?

(Edited a quote and reply away, because I was too dumb to read correctly.)

It is what actually has been protecting Nintendo from their failures.

So because it saves Nintendo from their failures, does mean its misleading to write articles that Nintendo did it?

They still exploit and abuse employees just like every other Japanese corporation.

In what way and where did you got that? Are there reports about Nintendo doing it?

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 1 point 1 day ago*

Just use your brain. Nintendo has roughly 8600 employees, 3000 in Japan alone. Salaries are the vast majority of indirect operating costs in any company. If Iwata halving his salary pays to avoid layoffs, then his salary had to be a huge percentage of Nintendo's operating costs and the WiiU failure would've been the least of their problems.

Nintendo regularly reports operating costs in the order of several billions of dollars quarter over quarter, a majority of them would be salaries or manufacturing. Even if Iwata was paid a single billion dollars a year, and halved that, it would barely amount to a rounding error on the accounting. It was just a PR movement, and most Japanese salary men recognize it as such. It is something done for media clout because "we will just pay you with the piggy bank money" doesn't add any drama worth a headline.

And Nintendo working conditions have always been controversial. While they are by far not the worst of Japanese corporate employers. They are not exactly saints either, falling into the same patterns that plague the Japanese office culture. Specially the abuse of employees qualified as independent contractors and unpaid overwork. It triggered a labor complaint in the US in 2022. They have become a bit better very recently, apparently. But it is still one of the oldest and most traditional fucking companies in the planet, they carry some troubling organizational culture sometimes. But this is hard to prove because secrecy and not advocating for oneself is part of said culture.

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[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 days ago (1 child)

Iwata is just different. It definitely won't happen today.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

When did Nintendo do mass layoffs? Nintendo is just not in a position where they buy lot of companies, then mass layoff (or cut salary in halve) when a game does disappoint. So you are right that it won't happen today, but for different reasons. I'm convinced that they would probably take a hit themselves, instead laying off huge part of their developers. This is one of the few things I actually like about Nintendo; and overall I don't like Nintendo anymore. The mass layoffs issue is a Western world phenomenon mostly (but not exclusively, just a tendency).

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[–] pycorax@lemmy.world 1 point 3 days ago (1 child)

Is Nintendo big tech though? They seem kinda too specific to a sub section of an industry unlike the other companies that typically come to mind when big tech is mentioned.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 3 days ago

Depends on what Big Tech and how big it is means to you. If we speak about the biggest tech companies ruling the world, then Nintendo isn't it. But Nintendo is in my opinion big and a tech company. I mean even Netflix can count as big tech company, depending on the definition, and they are not as big nor do they something different than video streaming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech