FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki has quoted former Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata while assuring fans there will be no layoffs at his company.
We’re halfway through the year and the constant stories about publisher layoffs still show no sign of ending. Just this week we’ve seen the closure of Alone In The Dark developer Pieces Interactive and the revelation that EA paid its executives £47.3 million, despite laying off 670 people earlier in the year.
This has all being going on for over a year now and yet no Japanese company has been affected. The only exceptions have been the Microsoft-owned Tango Gameworks and Sony’s Japan Studio, where the PlayStation division is run like an American business and is headquartered in California.
Most Japanese companies have avoided commenting on the issue, since it doesn’t affect them, but Dark Souls and Elden Ring creator Hidetaka Miyazaki, who is also president of FromSoftware, has stated that: ‘This is not something I would wish on the staff at FromSoftware in a million years. I’m pretty sure our parent company Kadokawa understands that and shares that view.’
Although a number of outside companies, including Sony and Tencent, have minor stakes in From, the majority shareholder is Japanese media company Kadokawa Corporation, whose main business is manga and anime.
They’ve never seemed to be a malign influence and have ensured that From do not become a console exclusive company owned by Sony or Microsoft, but there’s always a worry of what might happen if times get tough.
However, like most Japanese developers recently, FromSoftware has not only been hiring but has also instituted significant pay rises.
It’s not that Japanese companies are charities and American companies are not but the pay rises, which have also occurred at publishers such as Square Enix and Capcom, were a response to historically low wages at many Japanese studios.
Japanese employment laws are also much stricter than those in the US, and while it’s possible to shut down whole studios it’s all but impossible to layoff large percentages of them and still leave the company in operation, which is what’s been happening in the US.
In comparing the attitudes of the two countries many have referenced former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who twice took a pay cut – as did the whole executive board, to a lesser extent – when things were looking bad during the Wii U era.
‘I think it was the old ex-president of Nintendo, Iwata-san, who said that ‘People who are afraid of losing their jobs are afraid of making good things.’ I’m paraphrasing that, but I totally share this view,’ Miyazaki told PC Gamer.
‘I feel it’s true. And I feel the individuals at Kadokawa, our dad or mum firm, perceive that I maintain this view very strongly. While we will’t say 100% – we will’t say with full certainty what the longer term’s going to carry for From and Kadokawa – a minimum of so long as this firm is my accountability, that’s one thing I’d not let occur. So hopefully our gamers and our followers can take a bit of little bit of assurance from that.’
That’s definitely not one thing you’d hear Xbox boss Phil Spencer or the top of EA saying, regardless of neither of their firms having something near monetary issues.
The long-awaited Elden Ring DLC enlargement Shadow Of The Erdtree is because of be launched this month however after that it’s unclear what FromSoftware is engaged on, particularly as they’re now sufficiently big to work on two main initiatives without delay.
Fans have lengthy been hoping for a remaster or remake of PlayStation 4 unique basic Bloodborne – or a PC launch – however regardless of Miyazaki stating that it and the primary Dark Souls are his private favourites, of the video games he’s labored on, there’s nonetheless no proof that it’ll return.
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