According to the latest news, Nintendo is closing its Redwood City, California and Toronto, Canada offices. Kotaku reported the news last Friday. The publishing house reported that about 100 employees have been displaced in the Redwood City offices due to this sudden decision. Nintendo has not commented anything regarding how many employees would be affected by this move. However, in its statement, Nintendo suggested that some employees will be able to relocate. As of now, it is not clear why Nintendo took such a decision.
As of now, the Redwood City office is still showing on a map of Nintendo’s office locations on the company’s jobs website. As of earlier today, there are no open were positions listed for the Redwood City location.
The Redwood City office was focused on sales, marketing, and merchandising. Technically, this won’t affect the development of Nintendo’s games or hardware as most of the company’s games are developed overseas. The closure news is coming just weeks after the launch of a Nintendo Switch with an OLED screen and Metroid Dread.
Nintendo wrote this statement to inform the news:
“Nintendo of America headquarters are in Redmond, WA, and Vancouver, BC. We are moving more of our employees and operations into those headquarters and will be closing small satellite offices in Toronto, ON, and Redwood City, CA, over time.
Devon Pritchard, Executive Vice President, Business Affairs and Publisher Relations for Nintendo of America (NOA), will assume interim leadership of Sales, Marketing, and Communications following the departure of Nick Chavez. Ms. Pritchard will oversee strategy and execution of sales, marketing, and communications across the U.S. and Canada.”
