Nintendo has likely made its employees very happy, as it’s announced that the base salary for its workers in Japan is getting a significant boost. The move comes at a time when the game industry is in a shaky state, which makes Nintendo’s acknowledgment of its workers even more impressive.
Nintendo, like other console manufacturers, is feeling a pinch right now. The demand for RAM and other hardware is high, but supplies are low as companies like Micron pivot to selling only to AI companies. As a result of prices for parts rising, the price of the Nintendo Switch 2 is going up, similar to the increases that have been impacting the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X lines of consoles.
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Nintendo Gives Back to Its Employees
The president of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furukawa, announced the increase in pay at Nintendo’s latest annual shareholder meeting. An investor noted that Nintendo doesn’t have a labor union, and wanted to know what the company is doing to reward its employees. Furukawa responded that he feels it’s important for Nintendo to maintain an “appropriate level” of salary and compensation. Accordingly, the base salary at Nintendo Japan is being increased by an impressive 10%. It’s a bit of good news for the industry and game developers as the industry as a whole struggles with myriads of layoffs and the complete shutdown of several game studios.
Click on the game with the higher OpenCritic rating.
Unfortunately, it’s become common to see game developers laid off following the release of games, even when they’ve been successful. For example, Marvel Rivals reached 40 million players within a few months of its launch, but a US-based team that worked on the game was laid off. Battlefield Studios is another example, which laid off workers despite Battlefield 6 being the best-selling game of 2025. Of course, those who worked on underperforming games are even more likely to see layoffs or closures, but even success isn’t necessarily a guarantee of job safety.
However, Nintendo isn’t the only one that’s taken steps to reward its employees for success. Capcom raised employees’ salaries by a whopping 30% in 2022, while FromSoftware boosted theirs by 12% back in 2025. More recently, Pearl Abyss, the developer of Crimson Desert, gave a massive bonus of about $3,400 USD to each member of its team after the game sold 5 million copies. Atlus, the studio behind the wildly popular Persona JRPG series, also raised the salaries for its workers, with Atlus employees seeing a 15% boost to their salaries on average and an overall reduction in mandatory hours worked.
It’s hard to say what the future holds for the game industry as a whole, but Nintendo has a history of trying to do right by its employees, even when things have been hard. Former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata famously halved his own pay in order to help cover employee salaries. This happened back during the Wii U era of Nintendo, when the console notoriously struggled to sell and Nintendo’s future looked cloudy. With any luck, things don’t become quite that dire again, but it’s good to know that Nintendo is looking out for its workers.
