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Nintendo of Europe to close one of their 2 premises in Germany, 130 to be laid off

L

L~A

Member
Just saw this in the other Wii U thread:

Nintendo of Europe is about to close their Grossostheim premise. Frankfurt building is going to become their main HQ from now on. 130 jobs COULD be lost.

Kikolool said:
Totally off-topic but not able to make an own thread...Sorry for that

NOE closes one of their 2 premises in Germany

Unfortunately there is no english announcement yet but it has been officially confirmed against German authorities.

It basically says that the Grossostheim premise will be shut down (incl. warehouse) and sold while some people are relocated to Frankfurt. In total 130 people are being sacked.
Click to expand...

Here's the google translate version of the article, while we're waiting for someone to translate everything:

Translation by former GAF member Def:

BpdGOmVCAAEua78.png:large
Click to expand...
 
J

James Scott

Banned
First major layoffs we've seen at Nintendo for awhile. Restructuring is good, especially for Europe which is their weakest territory at the moment. Shame they had to let so many people go though.
 
A

Atram

Member
makes more sense with an HQ in Frankfurt. Hope they will find a solution for the employees in Großostheim and move the most stuff to Frankfurt.
 
P

Phazon

Member
Makes sense. Frankfurt is big and much more central for them.

The 130 people are mainly pr people or people who had to do some 'normal' jobs (I'm totally not trying to say we shouldn't care about them). Those aren't developers and they probably don't want to move to Frankfurt. I'm sure Nintendo will be able to build a much better HQ in Frankfurt tbh.
 
R

RiggyRob

Member
Atram said:
makes more sense with an HQ in Frankfurt. Hope they will find a solution for the employees in Großostheim and move the most stuff to Frankfurt.
Click to expand...

I really thought up to this point the HQ was in Großostheim, I never see anything mentioning Frankfurt as their centre of operations in Europe.

Shame to see people being laid off, hopefully they'll be able to get back on their feet soon.
 
J

Jimmyfenix

Member
Phazon said:
Makes sense. Frankfurt is big and much more central for them.

The 130 people are mainly pr people or people who had to do some 'normal' jobs (I'm totally not trying to say we shouldn't care about them). Those aren't developers and they probably don't want to move to Frankfurt. I'm sure Nintendo will be able to build a much better HQ in Frankfurt tbh.
Click to expand...

130 People still lost their jobs though. I understand it is restructuring but damn it must be hard for those people.
 
J

Jackano

Member
Come on the layoffs is BS. Francfurt is 40km away from Grosshossteim.
People can move a little, so this is not going to be a straight 130 layoffs.

Edit: beaten.
 
P

Phazon

Member
Jimmyfenix said:
130 People still lost their jobs though. I understand it is restructuring but damn it must be hard for those people.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure Nintendo offered them a chance to move with them to Frankfurt, but of course that's not always an easy thing to do. I only want to say that developers are a bit more used to a life where they sometimes have to move, while it's much harder for employees like in this case yes. I hope they'll find something else soon.


edit: i just see the distance is not that far away. Weird, but nvm my comment then :)
 
T

Taker666

Member
A shame for the people working there....but as has been said, two premises in Germany seems a little odd. Far cheaper to have everyone under one roof if possible.
 
J

JHelsing

Neo Member
I'm sorry because of the 130 workers that will loose their jobs, but Nintendo Europe, especially Nintendo Spain, sucks a lot. They must improve a lot of things... Anyway, poor workers D;
 
O

oti

Banned
For me (as a European, living in Germany no less) Großostheim was a part of Nintendo's identity. There's this huge entertainment company from Japan and yet they're kinda "local" for lack of a better word. Huge and small at the same time. Shame, but I'm sure it makes sense and all.
 
B

beril

Member
That's a bummer. Hope all the lovely people that I've met from NOE are unaffected by this. I have no idea which departments were in which city.
 
R

Rolf NB

Member
Tenki said:
Aren't Großostheim and Frankfurt pretty close?



That's what I was thinking. Why did they have two HQ in Germany?
Click to expand...
I think Großostheim was their first base, going back to the NES days. But it's a pretty small town (16k people). Frankfurt OTOH is a 700k banking/business metropolis with its own international airport. It's a much better choice if you're trying to be in the distribution business, and the diluge o f hotels / restaurants also helps when setting up business meetings.
 
P

Piccoro

Member
It basically says that the Grossostheim premise will be shut down (incl. warehouse) and sold while some people are relocated to Frankfurt. In total 130 people are being sacked.
Click to expand...

Crap. :(
It sucks when people lose jobs.
 
A

Atram

Member
RiggyRob said:
I really thought up to this point the HQ was in Großostheim, I never see anything mentioning Frankfurt as their centre of operations in Europe.

Shame to see people being laid off, hopefully they'll be able to get back on their feet soon.
Click to expand...

A few years ago they opened a new marketing department in Frankfurt south, this place will be the new hq (25km from my hometown) :)
 
B

Bjoern the Smexy

Member
So will they rework the German script for Secret of Evermore then, so that it plays in Frankfurt instead of Großostheim?

Also sucks for the employees. I hope they didn't have to let their translators go because their current ones are seriously some of the best German translators in the industry.

Also also, I went to their Frankfurt HQ last year just for fun to see how it looks. It was underwhelming.
The building was huge, but it's shared with several other companies so I can't really imagine that their offices in Frankfurt are as big as they were in Großostheim.
We'll see, I guess.
 
A

AcademicSaucer

Member
Are we sure those 130 people are being sacked? because if the Frankfurt hq is as small as people are saying, they cant possibly run their whole european operations from there, unless the NOE HQ is moving to somewhere else and frankfurt is only going to be the german HQ
 
J

Jucksalbe

Banned
oti xero said:
For me (as European, living in Germany no less) Großostheim was a part of Nintendo's identity. There's this huge entertainment company from Japan and yet they're kinda "local" for lack of a better word. Huge and small at the same time. Shame, but I'm sure it makes sense and all.
Click to expand...

Yep, same for me. I used to live pretty close to Großostheim, so it practically felt like next door. I mean Frankfurt is about the same distance, but that's just something very different.
 
W

wrowa

Member
Okay, there seem to be some misunderstandings: 130 people are possibly affected, not definitely. The people who are being laid off, aren't being fired because they are unwilling to move, either, but because Nintendo wants to outsource more parts of their operation.

Closing Großostheim is super weird, though, since it was their main warehouse in Europe. Not sure where they are storing their stuff now.
 
R

RiggyRob

Member
wrowa said:
Okay, there seem to be some misunderstandings: 130 people are possibly affected, not definitely. The people who are being laid off, aren't being fired because they are unwilling to move, either, but because Nintendo wants to outsource more parts of their operation.

Closing Großostheim is super weird, though, since it was their main warehouse in Europe. Not sure where they are storing their stuff now.
Click to expand...

UK maybe? I don't know if a Nintendo Online Store exists in Europe but they've certainly been pushing it in the UK.
 
T

thegodsend

Member
wrowa said:
Okay, there seem to be some misunderstandings: 130 people are possibly affected, not definitely. The people who are being laid off, aren't being fired because they are unwilling to move, either, but because Nintendo wants to outsource more parts of their operation.

Closing Großostheim is super weird, though, since it was their main warehouse in Europe. Not sure where they are storing their stuff now.
Click to expand...

You're right, the strange thing is that they close down their main European warehouse. All marketing / sales teams were already moved to Frankfurt a couple of years ago anyway.

Also Großostheim provided some tax advances to Nintendo being there, so the changes and number of layoffs really sound like a consequence of poor sales compared to the 3DS / Wii era.
 
E

Earthpainting

Member
I used to know someone that worked there for almost a decade. Großostheim was mainly warehouse if I recall correctly, so it wouldn't surprise me that a large chunk of those jobs won't be able to relocate to the main office. Still sad that a lot of jobs are on the line. I hope those affected will be able to bounce back to another job quickly enough.
 
L

la_briola

Member
This news is a bit of a surprise for me.
I often see Nintendo job offerings at my university (45 minutes away by car).
Maybe the positions are for Frankfurt. I can't remember.
 
Y

Yahsper

Member
I used to work at the Frankfurt office. It was the testing and translation facility back in 2007 with some extra art people. I'd be surprised if this hasn't been in the cards for some time, since that facility was way too big for what they were using it for.
 
B

Broken Joystick

At least you can talk. Who are you?
CVG:

Nintendo of Europe has entered into a consultation process on a number of changes it is intending to make to its European business which, in the long term, will better enable the European business to adapt to the rapidly changing business environment.

The measures include the consolidation of the current European headquarters in Großostheim (Germany) to Frankfurt (Germany), the closure of the warehouse and office in Großostheim, as well as outsourcing and reorganising some functions.
These intended measures have not been made lightly and have only been arrived at after thorough analysis and careful consideration. The intended measures will sadly have a direct effect on some of the employees based in the Großostheim and Frankfurt offices in Germany and would lead to the release of approximately 130 permanent employees.

Nintendo of Europe is committed to a fair consultation process with the local Works Council in Germany with the objective of providing clarity and support for all affected employees as soon as possible.
More to follow...
Click to expand...
 
C

Chaos17

Member
wrowa said:
Okay, there seem to be some misunderstandings: 130 people are possibly affected, not definitely. The people who are being laid off, aren't being fired because they are unwilling to move, either, but because Nintendo wants to outsource more parts of their operation.

Closing Großostheim is super weird, though, since it was their main warehouse in Europe. Not sure where they are storing their stuff now.
Click to expand...
So they ain't really closing, they're just moving out.
 
O

Oersted

Member
Nintendo of Europe is committed to a fair consultation process with the local Works Council in Germany with the objective of providing clarity and support for all affected employees as soon as possible.
Click to expand...

Lets hope this will be true, esp the latter part. IN Groß-Ostheim are a couple of big companies.

Chaos17 said:
So they ain't really closing, they're just moving out.
Click to expand...

They have been for a while. Großostheim became nothing but a warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
 
C

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
NoE and their German operations already felt understaffed as it is right now, I don't want to know how it'll be with even less personal.

They really need to get their shit together, sucks if people are losing their jobs in the process though.
 
S

Starwolf_UK

Member
RiggyRob said:
UK maybe? I don't know if a Nintendo Online Store exists in Europe but they've certainly been pushing it in the UK.
Click to expand...
The UK HQ is a small office in Windsor. The Nintendo UK store is run by The Hut group (best known for Zavvi) but with slightly better customer services (they could give eShop codes for MK8 to make up for the group basically not getting stock in time). The German Nintendo store is basically a really small version of the NOA one (there are separate parts lists on the support page but the British can't buy those parts...so like, need controller hinges for your Wii? thats a £30 minor repair)

I'd really like for NOE to be more united on this front. I want my overpriced replacement parts.

wrowa said:
Closing Großostheim is super weird, though, since it was their main warehouse in Europe. Not sure where they are storing their stuff now.
Click to expand...
That is my main thought on this matter. I can understand wanting smaller warehouse since the boom days of the Wii are over but they've been using that since the 90s.

Edit: Nothing is showing up on the jobs front yet. Only internships (which have the entry requirement of "The internship has to be mandatory for your current studies") and PR for Nintendo Austria.
 
K

Kikolool

Banned
vinnygambini said:
The official confirmation is released I guess. It's sad to see 130 jobs being cut in the process of restructuring. What were the positions of those at the Großostheim location? PR, Treehouse?
Click to expand...

Warehouse and some admin (HR,Finance,..)
All localization and marketing is already in Frankfurt.
 
N

Nezumi

Member
OK, some more info from someone who works there: The 130 who are being let go are mainly warehouse and related staff, which will be closed and completely outsourced, so they don't have the option to move to Frankfurt.

In addition, about 190 leasing staff from Frankfurt will also be made redundant. And just to be clear, we're not talking staff hired for short-term projects, but people who have worked there for years. Most of those are from localization, which will also be partly outsourced in the future.
 
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