Nintendo President Takes 50% Pay Cut, Blames 3DS
Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata is taking a 50% pay cut as a result of the failure of the Nintendo 3DS portable handheld to perform. Given lower than expected sales, which have prompted a price drop on the system, other members of Nintendo’s board of directors, including Mario and Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto, will also take pay cuts.
Iwata’s base salary was reported to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $770,000 last year, ultimately boosted to as much as $1.7 million by significant pay bonuses which will also be reduced in 2011. Other board members are expected to see their pay suffer substantial cuts as well, with take-home figures falling by as much as 20-30%.
Company representatives say that these drastic actions are being adopted as a means of management taking responsibility for the firm’s lowered predicted earnings this year, and the Nintendo 3DS’ failure to rapidly catch on. Nintendo claims that current problems have been caused by slow to launch services and software, which have stymied the handheld system’s momentum, which it hopes to grow before the holidays.