“At the previous headquarters, Mario Club Co., Ltd. performs debug operations and difficulty adjustments for Nintendo products.”
☆ NintendObs Event – Nintendo’s 2015 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders.
Question:
The previous corporate headquarters was near Tobakaido Station along the Keihan Main Line. I would like to know how the previous headquarters will be used in future.
Answer:
Iwata:
Nintendo moved its corporate headquarters to where it is now, at Hokotate-cho, Kamitoba, in November of 2000. Until then, the headquarters was at the buildings near Tobakaido Station, and I believe some of you may have come to a general meeting of shareholders there in the past. Right after we moved to the current headquarters, the number of employees working at the previous headquarters near Tobakaido Station greatly declined. After that, because the new headquarters became cramped, we moved some of the development departments back to the previous headquarters and had them work separately. Each year, product research and development becomes more sophisticated, and we knew that unless we concentrated many people’s energy in one place, we would not be able to develop products that would satisfy our consumers worldwide, so we proactively recruited development staff to strengthen our research and development. As a result, employees were forced to work at separate offices for the lack of space at the current headquarters. This situation led to our decision to build the Development Center (in 2014). By building the Development Center, we were able to concentrate our development teams here (at the Development Center). One of the characteristics of Nintendo is that both the hardware and software development teams are in one building, making it easier to exchange thoughts and opinions with each other even though they are on different floors. By giving each other advice and inspiring each other, the development teams develop products that astonish and entertain the world; therefore, I believe building the Development Center was truly meaningful to consolidate our development teams.
Now, at the previous headquarters, Mario Club Co., Ltd. (which is a Nintendo subsidiary) performs debug operations (an operation to check if the software runs as the developer intended) and difficulty adjustments for Nintendo products. The number of people involved in these operations has been increasing, and recently, we have made a shielded room in which the walls shut out all electronic waves from outside the room. In the room, they bring together numerous Nintendo 3DS systems and debug game software that is played using a wireless connection. Like such, we are making full use of the remaining buildings (at the previous headquarters). At this point, because we have not specifically decided how we will use the previous headquarters in the future, I cannot tell you of any plans at this moment. As of now, Mario Club is effectively utilizing the previous headquarters, and I believe any plans on the use will be decided based on Mario Club’s human resource planning.
— The 75th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders
Source: Nintendo JP.
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