The decision follows calls by prime minister Fumio Kishida for Japanese companies to pay workers more as inflation takes hold in the economy, Reuters reports.
“It’s important for our long-term growth to secure our workforce,” Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa told an earnings briefing.
Reuters notes that for Japanese companies that can afford to do so, higher salaries help attract talent in a country where a falling birth rate and low immigration have led to labour shortages.
Last year, Capcom announced plans to raise its own Japanese base salaries by 30%, ahead of its fifth consecutive year of record profits.
News of the decision to raise workers’ base salaries follows the publication of Nintendo’s latest financial results on Tuesday, in which it said fluctuations in foreign exchange markets had contributed to sales and profits declining, despite strong sales of Switch games and hardware.
Furukawa reportedly said in an earnings briefing that the company does not plan to raise software or game console prices in response to market conditions in Japan, but would consider doing so if circumstances demanded it.
He is also said to have declined to comment when asked whether the company was considering a successor to the Switch, which is now approaching its seventh year on the market.
In its results for the first nine months of FY23, Nintendo said its net sales were down 1.9% at 1,295 billion yen ($9.9 billion) and net profit was down 5.8% at 346.2 billion yen ($2.6 billion).
The company said the decline was partly due to fluctuations in foreign exchange markets, and a 21.3% year-on-year decline in hardware sales compared to the same time last year (14.91 million vs. 18.95 million), which it said was mainly due to a shortage of components.
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