Nintendo of Europe to Layoff 320 Employees

In the midst of all the big news coming from the Japanese Nintendo Direct press conference this morning, Nintendo did have one very big piece of bad news: 320 employees at Nintendo of Europe will be losing their jobs this coming week.

Kotaku is reporting that the 320 people being laid off at Nintendo of Europe includes the 130 Nintendo employees based on Germany from a story we previously covered. It also includes an additional 190 people who worked for Nintendo's Germany-based localization department which was contracted through a leasing company. Some may consider these 190 workers as temporary members of Nintendo, but they still worked exclusively for the company for many years. August 31st will mark the final day of their employment at Nintendo.

Nintendo of Europe's statement reads as follows:

As previously communicated in June 2014, approximately 130 permanent employees will be released by Nintendo of Europe (Germany) at the end of August 2014 as part of a set of measures to better enable the European business to adapt to the rapidly changing business environment. It is intended that there will be an increase in outsourcing future translation and test activities to third-party companies on an as-needed basis, and very sadly this has meant having ended the contracts of 190 temporary agency workers, who were formally notified of this decision in June 2014.

Mass layoffs are never a good thing, but we hope these 320 people can land on their feet and continue working in the video game industry. It's always depressing to hear about gaming-related layoffs, as those people now have to change their livelihoods and worry about their futures. Nevertheless, we wish them the best of luck.