Back when the Nintendo Wii was trailblazing a path that led to a sales record for Nintendo, company president Sartoru Iwata was considered one of the top CEOs of the world thanks to the console's success. Now, with the failure of the Wii U, Iwata has fallen from grace, and is offering up his salary by way of an apology.
Time is reporting that Iwata announced he would be cutting his salary in half after company profits took a devestating hit as Nintendo has failed to meet its financial goals:
"Satoru will receive half of his usual salary for the next five months, while Nintendo board members will receive a 20 to 30 percent cut in their salaries. The Japanese gaming console titan's revenues dipped by 8.1 percent during the last nine months of 2013 following sluggish demand for the Wii U games console amid fierce competition from Microsoft's Xbox One console and Sony's Playstation 4."
What's that amount to? Well, according to a 2010 GI.biz article, Iwata takes home a mere ¥68 million / $770,000 annually, rising to ¥187 million / $2.1 million with performance-based bonuses. Something tells me he'll be missing that bonus this year, so let's assume he'll be getting the former figure. That would come down to monthly take home of $66,166. So for the next five months, he'll only be brininging in $33,083 each month. Not anything like what he was getting during Nintendo's top-earning days with the Wii, but most of u would be more than happy with that kind of money.
Since its introduction in November of 2012, the Wii U has only managed to sell 3.9 million consoles worldwide, a figure which has since been surpassed by both Microsoft's Xbox One, and Sony's PlayStation 4. This despite the Wii U having close to a year's head start.
It was theorized that Nintendo was looking into bringing some of its well-known IPs over to smartphones as a way of opening itself up and expanding to other markets, but Nintendo has denied any such move.
