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Ever wonder how much Miyamoto and Iwata make?

bunbun777 said:
haha no i do not think so, Nintendo actually seems to make lots of money.
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Then I don't understand your post. Nintendo has no particular debts, is not particularly big and neither is it that connected to make it "too big to fail" (which is used for often badly performing companies which have such relevancy in the market that giving them taxpayer money for free is considered less costly than just letting them die).
 
shaft said:
Didn't Miyamoto state in an interview that money isn't everything and he is making more than enough?

Also he said it's about the fun in your job not the money once you pass a point of salary
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He also said that he turned down more money from Nintendo.
 
Mael said:
When everything goes to shit who gets the blame? Seriously even if you get to label developpers as managers, there's got to be someone somewhere who has the full knowledge of what the fuck they're doing withthe company money and who'll get the boot if things go to shit.
Heck guess what Miyamoto's job?
Better provide an example showing that you can handle a large project without a manager (and I mean big, nothing with less than 100 people too and in a company environment too since we're in a specific context) or stop spouting nonsense.
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Yes but at the higher levels, blame comes in the form of millions of dollars.
 
domlolz said:
the distribution of wealth in a capitalist society is deeply flawed. Miyamoto has taken it upon himself to help mitigate the effects of this system as well as being a game-making genius.
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I'm sad this thread turned into the "usual" complaints about management pay, US companies, etc.


As for your quote - did you witness non-capitalist system of income distribution? I lived in socialist country for 7 years of my life - seeing empty shelves in the store and thinking of exotic fruits as a luxury is not a fun thing, trust me. Think about this next time.
 
Are we sure that isn't omitting extra compensation, one-time bonuses, etc...? Surely Miyamoto hasn't been a lowly salaryman all these years with no payouts and no stock?
 
Castor Krieg said:
I'm sad this thread turned into the "usual" complaints about management pay, US companies, etc.


As for your quote - did you witness non-capitalist system of income distribution? I lived in socialist country for 7 years of my life - seeing empty shelves in the store and thinking of exotic fruits as a luxury is not a fun thing, trust me. Think about this next time.
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You know there is an in between, its not an either/or scenario. A lot of the "usual" complaints are valid. Insane disproportionate compensation, run the company to the ground and get paid millions to leave while a bunch of employees get layed off to cut costs, stagnant wages, ever increasing wealth gap that has been going on for decades while still crying about tax cuts because otherwise they can't form new businesses that provide jobs, etc.

Should the CEO and section VPs get paid more than the other employees? Of course they should, but that has gotten wayyyyyy over the line into the realm of the absurd in America at least.
 
Jin34 said:
You know there is an in between, its not an either/or scenario. A lot of the "usual" complaints are valid. Insane disproportionate compensation, run the company to the ground and get paid millions to leave while a bunch of employees get layed off to cut costs, stagnant wages, ever increasing wealth gap that has been going on for decades while still crying about tax cuts because otherwise they can't form new businesses that provide jobs, etc.

Should the CEO and section VPs get paid more than the other employees? Of course they should, but that has gotten wayyyyyy over the line into the realm of the absurd in America at least.
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Never understood execs getting millions, expenses, stocks, etc when there are people being laid off. THAT'S what's pissing people off.

I agree bosses should make more since they're responsible for more, but it's insane when they make boatloads, get bonuses, get paid to leave the company while the regular worker gets laid off with a 'thanks, but fuck you'
 
SuperAngelo64 said:
I heard Masahiro Sakurai still lives in a one-room apartment even post Brawl. He actually wrote up a big article somewhere about how the gaming industry is wearing him down by constantly clamoring for sequels.. He said something like how game developers in Japan don't make millions and mainly do it because it's their passion and that they feel so happy when they finally release an amazing finished product and then people are immediately expecting sequels and pointing out 'what could be better next time'.

Sakurai also did not want to make another Smash Bros. game after Melee. When Iwata announced it at E3 he did not tell Sakurai about it ahead of time. Sakurai basically got on board because Iwata begged him and Sakurai felt they would fuck up the franchise without him. I mean, to me that shows he has a genuine attachment to that franchise. It really can't be all about the money when most Japanese game devs make about as much as a bar tender.

EDITED: for sounding too weeaboo.
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Thats the case everywhere in the game industry...
 
Castor Krieg said:
I'm sad this thread turned into the "usual" complaints about management pay, US companies, etc.


As for your quote - did you witness non-capitalist system of income distribution? I lived in socialist country for 7 years of my life - seeing empty shelves in the store and thinking of exotic fruits as a luxury is not a fun thing, trust me. Think about this next time.
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Saying the system is flawed does not mean we should turn to communism. Non-capitalist systems failing horribly doesn't mean capitalism is perfect.

I think it's also a cultural thing, no, I'm not an "expert" :P, but in Japan success is not measured in how much you earn but in how good your work is.
 
Castor Krieg said:
I'm sad this thread turned into the "usual" complaints about management pay, US companies, etc.


As for your quote - did you witness non-capitalist system of income distribution? I lived in socialist country for 7 years of my life - seeing empty shelves in the store and thinking of exotic fruits as a luxury is not a fun thing, trust me. Think about this next time.
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I was being a little tongue in cheek with my comment, don't take it too seriously.

also what mantidor said
 
Clearly companies in the west have it out of whack, the ratio of exec pay to average employee pay has exploded recently.

People used to have some humility when they set their own wages.
 
Mael said:
That's badly run businesses.
Management should be fired for bad business decision, keeping the people that put you in deep shit is the best course of action if you want your business to fail.



I'm not the one who started saying stupid things.



You're presenting this like there's a side of managers and another of engineers :lol.
Someone being a coding monkey shouldn't exactly get the same salary as a junior manager, simply because the junior manager has more responsability.
Generally seenior engineers goes toward managing because they get enough responsability to manage a team.
There's nothing illogical in having your best people moving up the corporate ladder, heck if you don't promote them they'll be poached by the competition anyway (if they don't start a business either).
If innovation is your final goal anyway, you should starve them of funding anyway, spin off a team with very limited resources and give them a deadline. If they're truly that good, they'll find a way (and you've got to be resonable too, 1 man on 5 men project is not exactly a good idea).
Seriously why should someone handling the 10 biggest projects of you company have the same salary as your best engineer who's at most on 1 project at a time?



No.

That is corporate culture being highly illogical and unbalanced.
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You are going to extreme.

Think of biotech research. Amgen, genentech, etc.
If you don't have the best engineers and scientists in the team doing actual, your company is shit. These are not technicians or code monkeys, but Phds working as researchers.

It all depends on business structure. Most big companies have a very vertical structure.

Innovative small companies have a more horizontal structure. (facebook, google, startups, etc) it all depends on business culture. There is no wrong here.

I think nintendo likes the idea of being a small, horizontal company. This reward scheme matches that philosophy.
 
Assuming $166,000 salary is true. Don't forget that living in Japan is more expensive than the US. $166,000 in US = about $100,00 in Japan, If you wanna live the same life.
 
7Th said:
The guy leading the project is not a corporate, money-minded, manager, the guy leading the project is usually an artistic director or a senior engineer. What do you consider a "manager", anyway?
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Actually that's where I'd differ, the guy leading the project NEED to have a handle on the management of the project (and I'm talking money-minded people here).
Heck if he's not doing it, somebody else will do it :-/

amtentori said:
You are going to extreme.

Think of biotech research. Amgen, genentech, etc.
If you don't have the best engineers and scientists in the team doing actual, your company is shit. These are not technicians or code monkeys, but Phds working as researchers.
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Well yeah, it depends on how dependant of innovation your business is.
I mean if your product is tightly dependant on the fact that you have a patent that could deter your competitors, it's far more important to keep your Phds people.
There's a no absolute truth in the matter, I guess a company like Alstom would probably try to keep their R&D people at all cost while favoring their managers on the building of one town's tramway.

amtentori said:
It all depends on business structure. Most big companies have a very vertical structure.

Innovative small companies have a more horizontal structure. (facebook, google, startups, etc) it all depends on business culture. There is no wrong here.
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Very true, it also depends on what's the company mission statement too, I mean you don't have the same structure for a startup mainly doing r&d than for a big structure doing business managing softwares.

amtentori said:
I think nintendo likes the idea of being a small, horizontal company. This reward scheme matches that philosophy.
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That's the key of their success too, while other companies like EA and co couldn't change fast enough to adapt to the market, they swiftly changed their procedures and their product to fit the market they're after.
Heck on top of that they're business geniuses seeing how they react to their competitors, seriously everything they did since they announced the wii was to try and make Sony irrelevant.4 years later they're still doing it!
It'd be nice to know the way they work on the inside (and I mean deeper than the IA sessions)
 
Datschge said:
Then I don't understand your post. Nintendo has no particular debts, is not particularly big and neither is it that connected to make it "too big to fail" (which is used for often badly performing companies which have such relevancy in the market that giving them taxpayer money for free is considered less costly than just letting them die).
Click to expand...

I am sorry I was not clear. Nintendo is doing it right, they are not accumulating debt-- in that sense they are legitimately too big to fail, not in the failing context of what I originally was responding to. That is why I originally said we were going far from Nintendoland, and were talking of mismanaged corporations.
 
So people feel offended/irritated by Miyamoto's "low" salary? I would love to get this kind of salary and have the freedom to create games with just little worries over game budgets.
 
markot said:
Clearly companies in the west have it out of whack, the ratio of exec pay to average employee pay has exploded recently.

People used to have some humility when they set their own wages.
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Don't count on it.
 
the more I think about his salary, the more I believe he's pulled a Steve Jobs: more like a symbolic amount, his income generated by stock quotes etc
 
:lol This new salary transparency law is wreaking havoc on corporate Japan! Watch everyone go green with envy against their fellow employees.
 
Has the follow-up been posted?

http://kotaku.com/5576036/mario-creator-doesnt-need-your-stinking-money

Kotaku said:
In 2009, Miyamoto's salary was ¥126 million ($1.4 million), making him currently the second highest paid Nintendo employee. His base salary last year was ¥60 million ($678,000), which is the second highest base salary in the company. The average salary for execs at Japanese companies is around ¥25 million ($280,000) a year.
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So now did he really refuse that raise or was it BS....
Anyway if they think he's worth that much...
I can't say I know of someone in this industry more worthy of his pay though...
 
Nintendo Magic made an interesting point about Miyamoto in that he has essentially unlimited R&D reserves at NCL. They literally don't question him on budget or resources. That is what he truly values.
 
metsallica said:
Nintendo Magic made an interesting point about Miyamoto in that he has essentially unlimited R&D reserves at NCL. They literally don't question him on budget or resources. That is what he truly values.
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Who wouldn't? He's basically Willy Wonka at this point O.o
Heck Wonka probably had less money to sink.
 
bourgeoisie.jpg
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
It's always pretty funny to see the average person's reaction to the rare folks that don't value money much.
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Hurr-b-durr-b-durr. The reality is that money is power, and we could do worse, as aficionados, than to have more power concentrated in Miyamoto's hands.

Now's the time, now that you're getting older and maybe not quite so creative as before, to soil yourself, my man. Get really dirty, really fast, because all that "goodwill" you think you've built up will evaporate well before you can squeeze what it's really worth out of it.
 
slidewinder said:
Hurr-b-durr-b-durr. The reality is that money is power, and we could do worse, as aficionados, than to have more power concentrated in Miyamoto's hands.

Now's the time, now that you're getting older and maybe not quite so creative as before, to soil yourself, my man. Get really dirty, really fast, because all that "goodwill" you think you've built up will evaporate well before you can squeeze what it's really worth out of it.
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What in the name of fuck are you talking about?
 
slidewinder said:
What? What is so hard to understand there?

GOOD THAT MAN WHO MAKE MARIO HAVE MORE MONEY. GET MONEY WHILE YOU CAN MARIO MAN.

Better?
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But has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do earn more like?
 
Mael said:
Actually that's where I'd differ, the guy leading the project NEED to have a handle on the management of the project (and I'm talking money-minded people here).
Heck if he's not doing it, somebody else will do it :-/
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You didn't answer my question about at which point direction ends and management begins. :/
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
I...I don't see why it matters. He doesn't need anymore money, he gets to play with someone else's.
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But it would be better that he at least had the option to play with his own, should he need to. I mean, the guy has made BILLIONS for a publicly-traded company.

Billions of which he has a share so tiny it's not worth mentioning. For a company that, while it takes great pains to defend itself against the big bad market on the acquisition side of things, is nonetheless publicly traded, and thus subject to any number of forces that might undermine, even entirely unwisely, Miyamoto's supposed autonomy.

What is the difficulty here? There's this vibe in the responses so far that I'm some kind of idiot, but at the same time I feel like I'm replying to not-particularly-bright toddlers. Expand a little at least.
 
slidewinder said:
But it would be better that he at least had the option to play with his own, should he need to. I mean, the guy has made BILLIONS for a publicly-traded company.

Billions of which he has a share so tiny it's not worth mentioning. For a company that, while it takes great pains to defend itself against the big bad market on the acquisition side of things, is nonetheless publicly traded, and thus subject to any number of forces that might undermine, even entirely unwisely, Miyamoto's supposed autonomy.

What is the difficulty here? There's this vibe in the responses so far that I'm some kind of idiot, but at the same time I feel like I'm replying to not-particularly-bright toddlers. Expand a little at least.
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Ehn, we're not going to be able to come to an understanding. I'm not calling you an idiot or anything at all, but our values are fundamentally different, I think, so there's not a lot of point elaborating on things.

Miyamoto's safe as long as he's in Yamauchi's favour. Granted, that could go at the drop of a hat, but even in that scenario, someone would give him money to play with.

Of course, then Yamauchi would have him killed, so I guess it doesn't matter either way.
 
slidewinder said:
But it would be better that he at least had the option to play with his own, should he need to. I mean, the guy has made BILLIONS for a publicly-traded company.

Billions of which he has a share so tiny it's not worth mentioning. For a company that, while it takes great pains to defend itself against the big bad market on the acquisition side of things, is nonetheless publicly traded, and thus subject to any number of forces that might undermine, even entirely unwisely, Miyamoto's supposed autonomy.

What is the difficulty here? There's this vibe in the responses so far that I'm some kind of idiot, but at the same time I feel like I'm replying to not-particularly-bright toddlers. Expand a little at least.
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The difficulty is your failing to understand that he doesn't want any more money.

It wouldn't make any difference to his creative freedom or the games he makes. At least not in a positive way.

Post #237 is why most people think your some kind of idiot though.
 
Money is the means to an end, not the end itself. If it's the opposite for you you're either in a bad financial situation or you've lost sight of what's truly important in life.
 
I mean, he could put all his money in a trust whose proceeds go directly to Nintendo as long as Miyamoto is working there and doing so in a position commensurate with his talents.

But EVEN Miyamoto as a free-lancing to-be studio head going to the big, existent non-Nintendo publishers is just sooooo much worse a situation to contemplate than Miyamoto with $200 million of his own money and a really well-funded, super-talented studio to show for it.

It's just kind of... icky... for somebody of such stature and achievement to not have a TRULY independent stake in the game.
 
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