Nintendo has raised its employees base salary by 10%

https://mynintendonews.com/2026/06/26/nintendo-has-raised-its-employees-base-salary-by-10/

by _tk_ • 22 days ago

561 321 22 days ago

hootz2• 21 days ago

Always a great thing to hear. Well paid employees, good results, and I'm definitely loving their Switch 2 releases already.

leetrout4• 21 days ago

Off 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

hootz2• 21 days ago

DK 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.

WillAdams2• 21 days ago

What 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_)

vel0city3• 21 days ago

I'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.

mghackerlady6• 21 days ago

Unless you've played it elsewhere, I'd highly recommend person 3 reload

CM302• 21 days ago

Donkey 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.

mcphage2• 21 days 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• 21 days ago

Caves of Qud.

SSLy3• 21 days ago

I am afraid MK World isn't even the best kart racer on NS2. It's Sonic Crossworlds

wincy• 21 days ago

Pokemon 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.

high_na_euv• 21 days ago

I thought it is common in big companies to raise salaries by x% every year?

albertgoeswoof• 21 days ago

not anymore

tyingq• 21 days ago

When it was, it was typically some amount less than inflation. 1-2%

brettermeier• 21 days ago

That's what I think I get... So few, I don't even bother to look how much more it is...

bluGill3• 21 days ago

Every few years I get a 10% raise when they realize those less than inflation raises are enough that they are losing people who places that pay better. (sometime it was me who left, but the cycle repeats at the new place)

SoftTalker3• 21 days ago

3% for me, the last few years.

There are basically only two ways to get a substantial raise at most employers, either move to a higher grade/title position, or move to another employer (probably at a higher grade).

Once you are in, large pay increases are rare, I'm sure there are exceptions but as a general rule the salary you negotiate coming in is where you get your pay raise. Hence the prior conventional wisdom that you need to change employers every few years to get your additional experience reflected in your salary.

Japan has a culture of loyalty/lifetime employment so not sure how much that happens there.

colechristensen• 21 days ago

Japan had zero or negative interest rates for decades, a period which ended a couple of years ago.

NikolaNovak2• 21 days ago

Not in all / not anymore. I'm in Canada a 300k IT/consulting company and rated top performer several years in a row. No raises last couple of years, before that it was 0.49 and 1% respectively. This year there was zero salary increase for anybody in our branch.

toomuchtodo2• 21 days ago

Any year you're not getting a raise and there is inflation, you're taking a pay cut. You may know this, sharing as a PSA for those who might not.

ryukoposting• 21 days ago

Leave, that's BS.

KptMarchewa• 21 days ago

Individual employees. But the base rate (or band) stays the same, which is not what I'm reading here. So you might travel inside the band from low-paid to high-paid, while it stays the same.

Jcampuzano2• 21 days ago

I'm not gonna lie, I chuckled a bit reading this.

This hasn't been the case for at least a decade now, if not more.

First it was extended out to maybe once every 2 years, then more, and lately at every company I've worked at (primarily large companies) where pay was mentioned the response is "we pay at or above market rates - discuss with your manager."

ilamont• 21 days ago

Japanese Yen is now 162 to USD, the lowest exchange rate since 1986.

pibaker• 21 days ago

And they are seeing sustained inflation for the first time since 2000. Not a great time to be paid in yen.

oceanhaiyang• 21 days ago

For someone in Japan this is shockingly high! Money doesn’t go far here at all

seandoe• 21 days ago

Err does go far, right? Japan is pretty cheap in my experience.

collinmcnulty• 21 days ago

This 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• 21 days ago

Living there with local wages and taxes?

arkon_hn• 21 days ago

Not if you don't get paid very much?

kdheiwns• 21 days ago

Vietnam 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• 21 days ago

My British parents went there this year and found it very expensive

dartharva3• 21 days ago

Great 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• 21 days ago

I 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• 21 days ago

Interestingly 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.

ThrowawayR2• 21 days ago

Don't forget their patent trolling, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43059215 and general IP related bullying.

dartharva3• 21 days ago

Yeah I'll admit that's obnoxious but one could argue that's technically Nintendo of America, not Nintendo of Japan.

mghackerlady6• 21 days ago

Indies are where it's at. Increasingly, the modern games I play are either by nintendo or indie devs with the exception of the occasional atlus game

rootsudo3• 21 days ago

This 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.

Wowfunhappy3• 21 days ago

How 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.

CM302• 21 days ago

They do have at least one development studio there, 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.

mothballed• 21 days ago

I'm sure they've employed an army of lawyers for US IP law which isn't something easily reproducible in Japan.

rootsudo3• 21 days ago

It's considered tech, adjacent to The Pokemon Company, also in the same area...

It's not just localization and marketing they do have corporate IT and some development/studio as well as very poor security policies that gets them breeched every now and again which makes sense, they pay poorly and from my personal experience gatekeep but that makes sense from the applicants that probably get in their applicant pool.

Bluescreenbuddy• 21 days ago

Game devs in general underpay unless you're high up.

dismalaf2• 21 days ago

US tech wages are insanely inflated compared to, well, everywhere.

snapcaster• 21 days ago

I hate this crab in a bucket framing. It's so anti-working person. Why isn't it that wages are insanely deflated compared to the US?

genxy• 21 days ago

US tech wages are what everyone should be making. Tech looks high compared to everyone else, but it is more that everyone else's wages got suppressed.

bthrn• 21 days ago

I once watched a Vice President at an all hands explain that the company's decision to have non-competitive wages was because "it's not that we're underpaying, it's that everybody else is overpaying. If you want to go somewhere else to get overpaid, that's not going to last." I think about that every now and again and chuckle.

epsteingpt• 21 days ago

I 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-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• 21 days 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

Pooge3• 21 days ago

Yeah, 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.

famouswaffles• 21 days ago

I think this is a bit disingenuous. Japan spent nearly all of the last 30 years needling deflation. If you take a look at the highest grossing movies of all time in Japan with and without adjusting for inflation, it barely changes. Do that for the US and it's an entirely different list.

Normal inflation for the last 4 years is basically still nothing in the grand scheme of things.

missedthecue• 21 days ago

In Japan, inflation adjusted wages are down 2% over the last 20 years. In the same time frame in the US, they're up 20% and even for the bottom quartile, earnings are up 15%.

weikju• 21 days ago

but neither have rents or prices for common goods.

All the price increases over the last few years disagree.

woodruffw5• 21 days ago

I can't say I've ever been to Popeye's, but $68 for 3 people seems unlikely based on their online prices: I picked a random one in Orlando, Florida and the "family meal" (which appears to be a very large amount of chicken) is $20.

The closest thing would be the "16Pc Classic Signature Chicken Family Meal," which is $55.69 at that location and is described as feeding between 6 and 8 people. So you'd need to tip a bit to get to $68 from there.

Retric4• 21 days ago

Did you include tax?

Also, that meal doesn’t include drinks. Poppies is significantly cheaper if you’re taking it home and supplementing with your own drinks.

the__alchemist2• 21 days ago

My general assumption for any food I'm getting eating out in the US (across a range of regions) is $20/person for fast food/casual, and $30 if it's a basic restaurant. The food will be listed at $7-12 etc, but the receipt will show twice that due to fees, add-ons etc.

IMO what matters is what you pay; the numbers they post on the menus and other media aren't useful.

everforward• 21 days ago

If they’re bigger folks or starving and someone doesn’t want bone-in chicken, I could see it. 3 large 4 piece combos is $55.50 in Miami, and I think there are other things in that range (eg a 5 pc tender meal if someone hates bone-in chicken so they can’t get a family meal).

The family meals are substantially cheaper than individual meals, if you can get everyone to agree on bone-in chicken and the same 2 sides.

A 20% tip would push that up to something like $66.

axus• 21 days ago

This whole thread is like a Youtube epsiode of "Food Theory". https://www.youtube.com/@FoodTheory

isakmarr• 21 days ago

In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents

That can't be true. So inflation just doesn't exist in Japan?

rjh292• 21 days ago

Historically, no. Prices were basically flat for a long time until covid.

ForHackernews2• 21 days ago

Population is flat or declining so that's one of the main drivers of inflation. Japan could be a pioneer in steady-state economics.

corford• 21 days ago

For decades after the 1989 crash they were in deflation. Only in the last 3-4 years has any meaningful inflation returned. Some context here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades

numpad0• 21 days ago

For like past 30 years yes. The inflation during that time were covered by shrinkflation and value adds through feature adds. I think some argue it has to do with lack of popularity of credit cards and electronic payments, which nudge prices to gravitate towards nearest coin denominations which in turn suppress inflation. Which is probably true, considering if a bottle of soda went from a dollar and a dime to a dollar and two dimes, or the umaibo went from one dime to a dime and three cents totaling as four distinct coins, those will be very tangible to consumers.

pavlov• 21 days ago

Japan had decades of deflation after 1990. There’s a generation of people who got used to prices staying flat or going down.

WarmWash2• 21 days ago

Japan gets an economic pass because they have such a strict monoculture.

In the same way you can "break" the laws of thermodynamics by getting every atom to move in the same direction at the same time, you can "break" the laws of economics by getting every person to make the same illogical choice at the same time.

kuhsaft2• 21 days ago

Yes, the laws of thermodynamics and laws of economics are empirical laws. But, the laws of economics are derived from human values, which are inherently subjective.

You state the choices as “illogical”, but those choices can be logical based off a different set of values.

Similarly, if you have a different set of axioms, you can build a different reasonable system on it.

It's like Euclidean geometry and Non-Euclidian geometry. They are both valid systems based off of different axioms. Similarly, the different economic systems are valid based off of different set of societal values.

You can also compare it to the ideal gas law. It's a law, but is based of a hypothetical ideal gas. Similarly, the economic laws are based off of a hypothetical society. The ideal gas law does not hold in all conditions, and economic laws do not hold in all conditions.

The economic laws are meant as tools to predict behavior. But ironically, we end up modifying our behaviors to fit the laws, and we weaponize the usage of "economic laws" to control the behavior of others.

We have economists complain how "that economic system doesn't work". Yes, it doesn't work with the laws that define your economic system, but it works with a different set of laws. We have people say, "that doesn't make sense because of X law". It's the other way around. The "law" doesn't make sense, because I value something different.

8note• 21 days ago

is it similar?

to break the laws of thermodynamics locally, you need to have an open system where the tally is made up elsewhere

is japan following a unified culture of choices the result of other people doing extra outside of japan?

bilkow• 21 days ago

Note that the snack price was increased "from 12 yen ($0.08) to 15 yen ($0.10)". That's a 25% increase.

dartharva3• 21 days ago

Popeye's for 3 costs ~$10 in India unless you're trying to make a full-course meal out of it.

keiferski2• 21 days ago

I watch one of those “apartments for rent in Japan” channels and I’m consistently shocked how inexpensive apartments are in lower tier cities / not Tokyo. Like a studio in an inconvenient part of Fukuoka for $200-250 a month.

I guess the salaries are lower, but it’s hard to imagine such cheap rent in the equivalent American city.

brandall10• 21 days ago

It's hard to compare to the US as a big part of this is the very weak yen.

I spent a couple years traveling the world and punctuated my travels with a 2 week stop in Japan (Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto) in May '24. I was not prepared for how inexpensive everything was... much less than several eastern European cities I had just come from, more on par with places like Mexico City.

taeric5• 21 days ago

I mean... You are looking at a place that is about 250 square feet? There isn't an appetite for offering units that small in the US.

shagmin• 21 days ago

Think I've heard anecdotes about Tokyo being pretty affordable as well. Quick search shows less than 1/3 of income typically spent on housing, which is much better than major US cities.

bamboozled3• 21 days ago

Tokyo is massive, you can literally be living rural and still be in Tokyo. Could be an hour or more commute till you get into the metro area.

Not all of Tokyo is nice either. They also probably won’t rent to “outsiders” without giving any explanation so…

ForHackernews2• 21 days ago

https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3...

Here is a startling fact: in 2014 there were 142,417 housing starts in the city of Tokyo (population 13.3m, no empty land), more than the 83,657 housing permits issued in the state of California (population 38.7m), or the 137,010 houses started in the entire country of England (population 54.3m).

crooked-v• 21 days ago

Part of that is that Japan actually builds housing, while literally every major US metro area has a massive self-inflicted shortage of housing (https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives...).

akerl_• 21 days ago

I recently heard that a trip to Popeye's for a family of 3 recently cost $68 in Florida.

Does it?

Sparkle-san• 21 days ago

no, a combo meal (entree, side, drink) there is ~$10.

eloisant3• 21 days ago

Comparing prices between Japan and Europe or US is strongly skewed by the weak yen.

The fact that the JPY has lost a lot of value compared to the US dollar has nothing to do with how prices or salaries in Japan evolve.

jacobr12• 20 days ago

Wouldn't that be covered by using PPP comparisons rather than just market currency conversion rates?

segmondy• 21 days ago

Why should salaries catch up to heady levels of SV? There are very few places in US that can match SV in salary.

Tade0• 21 days ago

For the longest time their strategy was to:

1. Issue bonds at near zero or even negative yield.

2. Buy US bonds.

The country is still one of the largest foreign US debt holders at $1.191T, and interest from this debt pays for a significant fraction of the interest on their own debt.

fhn4• 21 days ago

I don't understand. Why would anyone buy their bonds when the US bonds yield more?

d4ng3• 21 days ago

If you issue debt at non-positive yield, then there is no interest on your debt to offset with the yield from US bonds.

Sateeshm• 21 days ago

As a kid, I always wondered why prices HAVE to keep going up. Seemed like a vicious cycle.

eloisant3• 21 days ago

It's a vicious cycle if we get in an "inflationary spiral", but most of the time a small inflation is pretty healthy.

namblooc2• 21 days ago

A capitalist society needs inflation in order to produce a desirable outcome. It is a driver of consumption, as opposed to people and organizations hoarding their money in a deflationary environment, as well as investments, because inflation leads to the devaluation of loans over time.

autoexec3• 21 days ago

In the end it's really just greed. Companies always want to charge as much as they can get away with. They are constantly testing price increases to see how high they can get their prices before they start losing enough customers that it hurts their profits.

Older customers who have an idea in their mind of how much something is worth based on how much they've previously paid may eventually feel cheated and stop buying, but there's always a new generation of customers who never knew any better. There are things they can do to offset the backlash like they might offer a sale at the same time as they increase prices to give customers time to get used to the new sticker price. They keep the price the same and try to hide the fact that they're giving customers less product.

it's pretty shortsighted though because it makes our money increasingly worthless and eventually we'll end up like Zimbabwe and a loaf of bread will cost us $100.

jallmann• 21 days ago

I thought the same, too. Generally some small amount of inflation is preferable to encourage spending, rather than deflation which discourages it.

If you know a $100 item will probably cost $102 later then you're more likely to buy it now. But if that item will cost $98 in a deflationary environment, then maybe you'll wait to buy it later. Wages also tend to fall in deflation, which makes it harder to pay back debt, so lending slows down - people won't buy houses or cars, etc. Businesses hold back on capital spending. The economy slows to a standstill: if no one is spending money, how can anyone make money?

indoordin0saur3• 21 days ago

I'm not an economist, so maybe someone more knowledgeable can weigh in. But my understanding is that deflation is worse. If you can just stick $10k under your mattress and expect it to be worth 10% more in a year you have no incentive to invest. Businesses will just hold their cash, banks won't have money to loan out and the sort of investments that provide new jobs, goods and services are a risky high-effort bet compared to just saving.

__turbobrew__4• 21 days ago

Inflation makes servicing debt cheaper which incentivizes getting loans to build things.

It also leads to those who have little bargaining power to become underpaid as they cannot negotiate higher salaries as inflation squeezes them.

kuhsaft2• 21 days ago

Inflation can exist because of a lot of things: natural loss of value, resource scarcity, monetary policy, greed, etc. And it's even harder to make sense of with fiat currency.

Seemed like a vicious cycle.

The issue is inflation and deflation both tend to be positive feedback loops. Inflation can promote behavior that promotes inflation. Deflation can promote behavior that promotes deflation.

Note that I use "tend to" and "can promote". It's all based of off assumptions on how people value things and their behaviors, as is all economic models.

why prices HAVE to keep going up

It really doesn't have to. We do so because economic models show that we should because of the way we behave. But, we also behave the way we do because of the economic systems that we've designed.

Prices have to keep going up if you want a system that promotes endless consumption and growth in consumption.

It also lets you have a "non-zero-sum" economy, where it appears everyone is making a "profit". But, in reality it isn't.

fhn4• 21 days ago

part of it has do do with scarcity and gas prices. Gas is used to produce and transport. If gas prices go up, prices go up just to pay for gas. Basic supply and demand. There are more humans, more cars so the demand is higher and gas is a finite resource. Alternative energies help but gas still heavily used.

derf_• 21 days ago

A steady amount of inflation allows interest rates to be near zero or even negative in real terms without actually being negative in nominal terms. Negative (real) interest rates are sometimes a necessary policy tool (see: 2008...2021), but negative nominal rates are difficult to implement in practice in our current regime of privately-controlled money creation via bank lending.

There are other monetary schemes that allow for negative nominal rates (100% reserve-backed lending, a.k.a. The Chicago Plan, or the gold or silver standard, etc.), and in those one does not need steady inflation. There was basically no inflation for most of the 19th century, when most currencies were backed by gold or silver. That had other drawbacks: for example, a relative inability to control the money supply. An expanding money supply following the California gold rush helped fuel speculation during the railroad boom, and the inability to expand the money supply on demand exacerbated the ensuing panic of 1873. Governments at the time did not believe it was their job to dampen the impacts of the business cycle, however.

downrightmike• 21 days ago

Interest rates create more money, inflation makes more money worth less.

Spain was pretty poor in the 1600's inspite of new world gold and silver, because inflation made everything more expensive as supply of goods wasn't really increased, but money supply was.

in 2020, USA increased money supply by 20% of their all time supply. So inflation has to devalue the currency by at least that much to keep it balanced. Which is why they are distracting us with all the shit they are doing. and they are ignoring the real issue.

mempko4• 21 days ago

People forget that prices don't rise automatically. Businesses decide to raise prices. There isn't some magical force called inflation cuasing prices to go up. It's human decision-making all the way down.

eloisant3• 21 days ago

Human decisions but usually with external factors: increasing costs, pressure to grow, etc.

If they could get away with raising price just because they feel like it they would do it earlier and more often.

fhn4• 21 days ago

Have you ever run a business?

senordevnyc7• 21 days ago

People forget that high prices aren't paid automatically. Consumers decide to purchase things at the higher prices, it's human decision-making all the way down.

chasd002• 21 days ago

I recently heard that a trip to Popeye's for a family of 3 recently cost $68 in Florida.

That’s $22 per person. Would like to see what they ordered. Not saying I don’t believe it but that’s pretty high. My family of 4 can eat chilfila for that and chikfila is kind of pricey for fast food where Popeyes is pretty much trash.

throwaway27448• 21 days ago

I don't think chick-fil-a is any less trash than Popeyes, personally, and the fried chicken itself is lower quality—too sweet and moist. The fries are dry and unseasoned. The biggest selling point is the lemonade.

Granted, I don't eat at either because better value fried chicken than both is not terribly difficult to find.

micromacrofoot• 21 days ago

to be fair, it's all trash

bityard2• 21 days ago

No, that's about right in my (very limited) recent experience. It's _very_ easy to spend as much at a fast food restaurant these days as you would at a sit-down restaurant, especially if you don't do one of their combo meals, or add one or two extra items to your order

The crazy high prices and general unhealthiness aside, my main beef (if you'll pardon the pun) with fast food places is that more and more of them are taking orders via AI and/or requiring you to download and install their app to place an order.

TheGRS3• 21 days ago

Whoa...harsh words. I consider their fried chicken sando the best in the biz, yes even over Chik-fil-a

kraquepype2• 21 days ago

Menu prices in the restaurant are ridiculous now.

The only way I can stomach buying fast food is through deals on their apps, which I find very anti-consumer and predatory.

It's also super annoying when you just want a quick and cheap meal but you need to spend an inordinate amount of time on their app to figure out how not to get taken advantage of by their pricing.

throw544577• 21 days ago

Popeyes is way tastier. Chick-fil-a is so bland.

socalgal22• 21 days ago

Prices in California seem out of control to me. Recent examples, BLT + Coffee = $36, Plate of broccoli, plate of peas, small pizza, tap water = $95. Plate of 2 tacos, burger, 2 drinks = $120. 2 sandwiches = $60

As for Japan. ATM food is often cheaper. If you want cheap though, there are plenty of much cheaper places in the world. For rent, there are cheap options I wish existed in the states. As many point out tho, size is small. I'm happy to pay less for a smaller place but the price per square meter is comparable, maybe not to SF but at least to LA.

Note that like any city, there is a vast range from downtown to less popular parts of the city. "Tokyo" even includes mountains and farmlands on it's far west side

bpt36• 21 days ago

Or you can eat much better food all around for much less in other establishments.

Businesses charge what they can get away with, and you're actively wasting money if you're referencing prices you actually paid for those meals recently.

skybrian3• 21 days ago

Where in California is that?

rafram• 21 days ago

That's 10 cents for a single 35-calorie corn puff, to be clear, and it was a 25% price increase. 10 cents for one corn puff is not actually a good price.

bamboozled3• 21 days ago

Wrong.

maxrecursion• 21 days ago

Popeyes has always been ridiculously over-priced. I stopped going there over a decade ago when I realized they charge at least 2x any other fast food place that exists. They are the same as Five Guys, but at least Five Guys puts some effort into appearing like you are getting quality food. Both are way over-priced though.

senordevnyc7• 20 days ago

Awesome news! Please let me know which chain I can go to for fried chicken at half the price that Popeye’s charges.

jancsika• 21 days ago

I recently heard that a trip to Popeye's for a family of 3 recently cost $68 in Florida.

Just checked online.

8pc family meal of spicy white meat with large mash potatoes and gravy, one sweet tea, one purple lemonade, one chilled premium mango lemonade

$41.05

@ 1501 NW 20th St, Miami, FL 33142

Bring-your-own-liquids = $30.38

Either ordering at the counter is criminally expensive, or you were listening to someone who wanted to spend $68 at Popeye's in Florida so they could complain about spending $68 at Popeye's in Florida.

dymk2• 21 days ago

That 8pc 'family meal' feeds 2 people. The sweet teas don't count as food - they may as well be dumped down the sink.

Feeding a family of four would need 2 of those 8 piece meals, so $60.

tenacious_tuna• 21 days ago

My partner and I spent ~$70 CAD at popeyes the other day for two adults. I got a sandwich + fries + slaw, they got tenders, we both got fountain drinks.

that's about $50 USD.

wollowollo• 21 days ago

why is the lemonade purple

fuzzy_lumpkins• 21 days ago

$20 used to feed a whole family at KFC/Popeyes.

tekla• 21 days ago

It 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-pres...

mcphage2• 21 days ago

Stockholders seem concerned that Nintendo isn't throwing away enough of their seed corn, like all the other major game publishers are.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 21 days ago

Oh no, their poor stock! They should lay everyone off, cut pay, and join the dystopia like everyone else!

iLoveOncall2• 21 days ago

Before 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/sof... for a company that has a stash of cash and is as successful as they are.

chalupa-supreme• 21 days ago

100k 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.

iLoveOncall2• 21 days ago

BECAUSE it is one of the most recognizable brands of the world it's a bad salary.

groundzeros2015• 21 days ago

160-250k jobs? I think no action would satisfy you.

cautiouscat• 21 days ago

Nintendo 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• 21 days ago

Its 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.

SSLy3• 21 days ago

they indiscriminately shut down any sight of online smash tournaments

bananaboy• 21 days ago

My 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.

kipchak4• 21 days ago

AM2R for example was distributed for free and DMCA-ed.

ksymph• 21 days ago

That's just not true. Off the top of my head: SMBX, Pokemon Uranium, Ocarina of Time 2D, AM2R. A few years back they mass DMCA'd hundreds of fan games on the site GameJolt, none of which were monetized.

(why some fan projects like Showdown are still up is anyone's guess)

solenoid0937• 21 days ago

When I was a kid this Japanese guy from Nintendo used to live next to us. He gave me the Nintendo DS before its official release for my birthday. It was pretty cool.

kittikitti• 21 days ago

Congratulations Nintendo employees! I've always had great conversations and interactions with your engineers so I think this is well deserved.

axpy906• 21 days ago

10% from what to what? Japanese companies are not famous for pay.

IshKebab• 21 days ago

Yeah without context this could be good or bad.

ChrisMarshallNY• 21 days ago

That'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.

dyauspitr• 21 days ago

What we need is a concerted world wide order of magnitude reduction in the numerical symbology behind money. It’s where a $100 becomes $10 and the same with every currency world wide at exactly the same time. We should do this every 50 years.

nharada• 21 days ago

why?

pjc50• 21 days ago

This is way too much of a hassle to do unless the number of zeros gets too high.

dagi3d• 21 days ago

I 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.

bluGill3• 21 days ago

2023 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.

CuriouslyC2• 21 days ago

All 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• 21 days ago

The other studios’ investors are winning just fine. That’s all that matters to them.

10xDev• 21 days ago

This 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-sal...

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sega-is-raising-jap...

https://gameworldobserver.com/2024/03/06/capcom-salary-raise...

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/sonys-game-division-anno...

CuriouslyC2• 21 days ago

I 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• 21 days ago

this is a puff piece. the raise was in April 2023

sokoloff5• 21 days ago

The story seems mixed; you are correct that the specifically 10% raise was back in 2023, but they also implemented additional raises in April of 2026, though not the specific 10% that was tweeted/widely reported.

jessillions• 21 days ago

Good for them. My colleague used to work for them, said it was the best

brcmthrowaway• 21 days ago

Whats the highest paying gane studio? Rockstar?

charcircuit• 21 days ago

And the weakening of the yen to the dollar reduced the salary by -12% over the last year.

steveBK1232• 21 days ago

In Japan, giving your employees a raise is very rare and a sign of great respect.

robotburrito• 21 days ago

The 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• 21 days ago

Good 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• 21 days ago

The 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• 21 days ago

A lot of companies seem to not do consistent raises for inflation

cjblomqvist• 21 days ago

In 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.

ryan_n• 21 days ago

Still way better than what many companies do in the US regarding inflation adjustment...

gretch• 21 days ago

You 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.

bamboozled3• 21 days ago

People are already stupidly underpaid in Japan too so yeah, I agree.

pocksuppet2• 21 days ago

Annualized 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.

sokoloff5• 21 days 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.

pocksuppet2• 20 days ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48489655

tancop• 20 days ago

nintendo 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.

Nintendo has raised its employees base salary by 10%

Related Stories