Nintendo CEO Iwata doesn't earn as much as you'd think

by Alexander Sliwinski on Jun 29th 2010 6:05PM

We never thought we'd say this about a CEO (it just feels wrong), but Nintendo's Satoru Iwata totally deserves a raise. The CEO's base salary last year was a measly ¥68 million (about $770K), with the executive taking home ¥187 ($2.1 million) after a performance bonus. Nintendo, as a company last year, made roughly $2.45 billion in profit! Nintendo guru Shigeru Miyamoto, along with a group of five other board members, apparently earned just ¥100 million ($1.13 million) total. These guys have to be making more money from stocks or something.

Andriasang reports the salary revelations are thanks to a new Japanese law requiring companies to reveal any board members' earnings over ¥100 million ($1.13 million). For comparison, Square Enix's Yoichi Wada collected ¥240 million ($2.7 million), while Sony's Sir Howard Stringer, heading a company that admittedly extends way beyond games, pulled in a cool ¥816.5 million ($9.2 million). As for some CEO salaries from around the world, according to Forbes (via GI.biz), Activision Blizzard's Bobby Kotick is guesstimated to have made $3.15 million in 2009 and EA's John Riccitiello allegedly took home $9.85 million.

Via: GI.biz
Source: AndriaSang

Tags: business, ds, iwata, nintendo, salary, Satoru-Iwata, shigeru-miyamoto, wii

Reader Comments (45)

The Nintendo HQ? Ya, built out of 1 Yen bills. That's what they do with it all.

OH NOES!!! Only 770k? The humanity!!!!

@Grey I know right? They probably realize that 770k is a ridiculous amount to live off of anyway. If I was making that much in a year I'd just save for a couple years and retire to a cabin on a lake somewhere and call it good.

@AnderFREAK

It is not a lake....
It's an ocean.

@Grey Actually 2.1M including bonus (which at many companies, noit just Nintendo, is the majority of yearly pay for high level execs). It's kind of sad to think we've gotten so used to grotesque levels of compensation for CEOs that people are saying they think he's underpaid @ 2.1M.

Given how much stock he probably holds as a result of being CEO, the guy's pretty much guaranteed to be insanely rich by anyone's standard.

Japanese companies tend to spread wealth among employees more often. Even in Europe the top salaries are not as disproportionate as they are here in USA.

I remember reading something that compared top salaries in USA to Europe. In USA top salaries were 500x more than average employees and Europe it was 250x. I can't see it being much different in Japan.

I've always said...if you really enjoy doing your job, being the highest paid won't be your main priority.

@Lerkero I'd drop my (current) high paying job that I hate for a low paying job that I loved in a heartbeat.

@Lerkero

The problem with that comparison is that the average US employee makes more than his European or Japanese counterpart and it also goes a lot further in the US due to the lower cost of living.

Spreading the wealth doesn't do much good when there is far less wealth to spread, which is usually what happens when one attempts to spread it.

@Lerkero

Japanese take their job seriously whether they're a janitor or an executive. You work hard, the company is successful. The company is successful, it's stable. Stability guarantee your job. It's a positive loop.

But then there's the overworking issue.

@Lerkero

It's good to see economic illiteracy is alive and well in the video game world.

@Lerkero In the US it's on the order of 950x more for the exec when compared to the lowest wage paid to any employee in the same company.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

You don't like being an assassin?

@Lerkero
This is exactly what I wanted to say. We learned this in my Nippon studies in college. Your numbers are about spot on as well ($500 for every $1 in the US and something around $150-250 for every $1 in Japan).

Not everyone is greedy as us American's JOYSTIQ

@LaughingTarget

I totally agree. Nintendo really should lay some people off in order to free up more money for Iwata's salary. It's better for all involved that way.

Poor EA! They're being shafted out of money by used game sales!

Project 10 Dollar should help them out!... Oh, what's that about the overpaid CEO? No, we like to take our money out of the consumer!

@Wiizer He makes more than Sir Howard... and all they produce are games.

That's quite ridiculous.

@Evin

I found it ridiculous that a few of Joystiq's staff and some commenters were feeling any type of sympathy for EA when they announced Project Ten Dollar!

I hope that people are a little wiser now that they see the obvious flaws in how EA values their employees.

Who cares about how much you make from your salary/bonuses when you have a money printing machine?!

With just %10 of what they make in a year most people would be set for their whole life. They could save a million african children with that money but instead they pay the people that make great games happen and for that I thank them.

@Thorz

I don't think you realize how douchey your comment is. I hope you really don't mean that.

@Thorz

Maybe African children should start making games.

@Thorz Nah I was being sarcastic, I think its a discrace that one person can earn so much.

Do they have to report the money printed by the DSes?

http://www.stuffwelike.com/stuffwelike/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/prints_money1.gif

@Yan You think someone would update the DS model on that picture by now.

@Yan
AHHH SNAP!!!!!!

@Yan
:)
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/9/2010/06/c3b8407ae0b8f5f87fc09dd15384f058/original.gif

So he's short from reaching the one million a year mark. Big whoop. I'd kill to earn 1/10th of what he does.

@(Unverified) If that's the case, talk to Ezio; He just revealed he gets paid rather well if I read Cor. . . OH SHI-

No. He does not deserve a raise. (Or, he deserves a very modest one.) Nintendo should put that money in the company coffers, or re-invest it.

Lower the salaries of his American peers. They have obscene, unacceptably-high salaries.

Considering 92% of the world makes under 10k USD a year, I won't cry too many tears or lose much sleep over his "misfortune".

Huh, so that voids a bit of the idea about Miyamoto refusing a high salary. He merely refused a high salary as a designer, forgetting the fact that he's on the board.

@Mr Khan

So that $1.13 Million, split 6 ways, comes out to $188,333 each. For someone in his position, that's not anywhere near "high". It's a lot for a "normal" person I suppose, but he's not exactly building his house with gold bricks. Nintendo probably wouldn't let him take a lower salary than that.

Poor Iwata, how will he survive?

North American execs are paid way too much, and EA paying their CEO 9.85 million while losing hundreds of millions this year is very much of a disappointment.

Wow, some people here really have no idea how CEO's positions work and why they (normally) get paid so much.

This man needs a raise, if only so that he will continue to push Nintendo into more groundbreaking products.

@Hivetyrant
I'm not really too worried about that; he seems to be doing it just fine. One thing that separates him from your average CEO: he actually knows about and LIKES the product he's involved in producing.

Iwata totally deserves more money than Kotick or Riccitiello.

All of you guys waxing appalled and crying that Iwata should make less truly don't get it. The fact is that the man deserves every penny and more. People with his specific set of skills are rare and should be valued and although it's not PC to say it, not all people are equally gifted. You can say that all he does is sell games, but that's narrow-minded and short-sighted. Video game research and sales fund and improve everything from medical research to communication technologies, not to mention the thousands of jobs that the industry provides. The fact that he makes less than some of his contemporaries in the face of such unprecedented success also says a lot about his character. Iwata for President!

@ZeroBx500
I'm pretty sure he could get more money if he turned some screws. Let's remind ourselves of just how much pure profit his company is making. I think the fact is, the guy is pretty damn humble.

Iwata was the one who aimed things at casual gamers, and that has brought the company billions of dollars in pure profit. And he only takes 1.7mil for this? Sure, that's still a significant sum of money, but if an American performed that well, he would be paid many times that or flat out jump ship for another company. Iwata is pretty humble, I would say.

i'd be glad to be paid just $1 a day , if i get to work on games with miyamoto san.....

Sounds like he's doing good to me.

2.1 million dollars total for a year? Bummer...

I'm glad to hear that he still doesn't have an overly inflated salary. It is obviously still a lot of money, but CEO salaries are often disproportionate to how they contribute to the company in my opinion (the EA example is a good one). Iwata is an exception in many ways, but that is more than enough money to live well.

It always irritates me to hear about enormous corporations in financial trouble, laying off the people who get the work done, only to have their CEOs get enormous bonuses or outrageous severance packages for running their company into the ground.

Here we have a successful company with top management who gets paid more money than almost everyone else (I would assume), but not so much that you could fund several entire games with their salary. All this despite the absurd amount of money the company makes. The money can then instead be put back into developing great video games.

There is no question, this should just be applauded. (That is if they don't have a secret vault of DS-printed money)

That's because you didn't account the billions of nintendollars he makes.

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Nintendo CEO Iwata doesn't earn as much as you'd think

Reader Comments (45)

Posted: Jun 29th 2010 6:09PM LaughingTarget said

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