Nintendo of Europe is cutting more jobs than it previously reported in June.
The company is laying off around 320 people in the European region (as first spotted by Kotaku). This comes as the Nintendo strives to cut costs following several quarters of losses due to sluggish sales of the Wii U home console and the 3DS portable. The company has plenty of cash, but it’s obviously doesn’t want to continue bleeding money while its reserve drops.
In June, Nintendo confirmed that it let go of 130 people in its Nintendo of Europe division. The company reconfirmed that, but it has now also confirmed to GamesBeat that it let go of around 190 people who were working in its European localization department in Germany through a third-party temporary-employment company.
Here is the statement Nintendo sent to Kotaku:
“As previously communicated in June 2014, approximately 130 permanent employees will be released by Nintendo of Europe (Germany) at the end of August 2014 as part of a set of measures to better enable the European business to adapt to the rapidly changing business environment.
As a separate measure, Nintendo of Europe is reorganizing its European Localization Development (ELD) department, where it currently uses a number of temporary agency workers in translation and testing activities, in order to increase flexibility and cost-efficiency in the long-term. It is intended that there will be an increase in outsourcing future translation and test activities to third-party companies on an as-needed basis, and very sadly this has meant having ended the contracts of 190 temporary agency workers, who were formally notified of this decision in June 2014.”
Nintendo will no longer use temps or full-time employees to fulfill those 190 jobs. Instead, as the company notes in its statement, it will outsource that work to other organizations in the future.
During its fiscal 2014, Nintendo reported a $229 million loss. That was largely due to slow sales of the Wii U. Since its November 2012 debut, the console has only surpassed sales of around 6.5 million. That’s well behind Sony’s PlayStation 4, which reached 10 million in sales in the nine months since its November 2013 launch.
Even the 3DS, which has reached 43 million units sold, hasn’t performed as well as its DS predecessor. Nintendo introduced the New 3DS this morning, which the company hopes will boost the portable’s sales going forward.
Nintendo chief executive officer Satoru Iwata, despite recent losses, is promising investors that the company will return to profitability by the end of this year. To do that, the company will need arcade-style racer Mario Kart 8 to continue to sell well (it has already surpassed 2 million in sales worldwide). It will also need New 3DS, Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U, and Hyrule Warriors to all perform well throughout the holiday.