Nintendo Executives Received Bonuses After Last Year’s Financial Hits

It’s no secret that the ongoing global pandemic has affected the gaming industry in both positive and negative ways. For Nintendo, this meant that their flagship system, the Nintendo Switch, ended up being one of the best-selling consoles on the market, resulting in record profits for the company.

In a recent annual financial report released by Nintendo for the fiscal year ending March 2021, the company disclosed the salaries of its senior executives, namely Nintendo President Shintaro Furukawa; Mario’s father, Shigeru Miyamoto; and the director general of the entertainment planning and development division, Shinya Takahashi.

Each executive member receives, in principle, a fixed salary. For Furukawa, Miyamoto and Takahashi, these salaries are approximately $ 712,000, $ 657,000 and US $ 109,000, respectively. Each member also received “performance-based compensation” at year-end, amounting to approximately $ 2.19 million for Furukawa and $ 1.64 million for Miyamoto and Takahashi.

Source: Nintendo (screenshot)

Considering the number of incredible games released for the Nintendo Switch over the past fiscal year, the bonuses come as no surprise. And while that’s certainly a salary that would make the average Joe cry for joy, it’s considerably modest compared to other video game company executives. Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, was recently cited as one of the most overpaid CEOs of 2020, making over $ 30 million that year alone.

Nonetheless, it appears that the salaries of current Nintendo executives reflect the company’s attitude to humility, as former chairman the late Satoru Iwata notoriously flaunted with a 50% pay cut as a result of the catastrophic sales of the Nintendo Wii U, in order to prevent employees from being made redundant.