On February 16th, 2013, Nintendo will be undergoing a restructuring for the first time in about a decade, according to a Nikkei report. The re-structuring will involve merging Nintendo’s development divisions for home consoles and portables.
As part of the move, 130 console and 150 portable division engineers will be placed under a single division, which will be housed in Nintendo’s new building, which is currently being built next to its existing main headquarters in Kyoto.
The goal of the move, Nikkei reports, is to enable Nintendo to develop future hardware that will “turn heads” and to do it quickly and efficiently. Additionally, Nintendo are looking to increase interoperability between their devices, including the possibility of using Nintendo portables as controllers for their home consoles, as well as the ability for users to take their games with them on the go.
Nikkei’s report states that the rise of smartphone technology and its popularity is the main factor that led to this decision by Nintendo, as they look forward bolstering their hardware development in order to compete on a global scale.
A shakeup of this scale hasn’t happened at Nintendo in a while. The last time the company went through a similarly significant restructuring was in 2002, when Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, took ahold of the reins and organized Nintendo into its existing structure, with software development teams divided primarily into the EAD (Entertainment Analysis & Development) and SPD (Software Planning & Development) teams.
Published: Jan 19, 2013 12:30 pm