05/04/2022
Inside the Growing Discontent Behind Nintendo’s Fun Facade
Special Report: We go in-depth on the growing frustration within Nintendo of America.
In 2010, Nintendo of America opened its brand-new headquarters in Redmond, Washington on a 10-acre plot owned by the company since the early 1980s. The late Satoru Iwata cut the ribbon on the state-of-the-art facility alongside then-Washington State governor Chris Gregoire on a "gleaming 300,000 square foot facility" with "cushioned benches shaped like d-pads" and a "Mario Kart-themed parking garage." It was everything a Nintendo fan could imagine, right down to the main boardroom being known as "The Master Sword."
Across the way, past a soccer pitch of the sort one often sees on West Coast tech campuses, is a much older building that isn't nearly as well-known. A former warehouse that houses a hodge-podge of departments ranging from data science to Product Testing and Development (PDT), it in some ways hearkens back to the days when NOA was simply an arcade distributor operating out of New Jersey. The warehouse doors are still visible, and the freight elevator near the greeting desk will sometimes get stuck open and make loud grinding noises. While Nintendo has spruced up the decoration with some Mario-themed diagrams, it's otherwise a nondescript work area with an atmosphere akin to a library.
In contrast to the ultra-modern facilities nearby, many of the workers are toiling away on outdated equipment and software, with software that looks like it’s running on Windows XP and a database that dates back to the 90s. Until just a few years ago, it was still possible to find bins of old VHS tapes filled with bug recordings in the PTD area. Secrecy, constant software crashes, and the ever-present need for translation of messages from the Japanese headquarters frequently slows work to a crawl.
