Nintendo Is The Sixth Most Desirable Company Among Japanese Undergraduates

I mean I'm kinda like them. Even though i'm 12. I would like to work with Nintendo in the future.

working in japan would be a nightmare, they do 12 hr days as standard, fudge that

I've always wanted to work at Nintendo and still would. I don't care if it's mopping floors.

Off-topic, that's a nice shot of Kyoto, that sky is awesome.

I remember when I had hopes and dreams. Seems so long ago now.

Oh those poor souls

You'd think a company known for fun would have a more unique looking building or a giant Mario statue out front, something.
But nope, without the logo, it looks like any other office building. Kinda disappointed.

@jockmahon
If the Japanese work such long hours, how do they find time to play so many video games that get released there?

@jockmahon I have to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week 10 months of the year so I'd be used to the hours. Sadly unless Nintendo want to enter the road constriction business I doubt I have any chance of a job!!

Seriously though as a kid/teenager I dreamed of working for the big N I wish I'd actually pushed myself harder and pursued the various non programmer interests I had at that age but before you know it your your almost 30 and your settling for the good pay check every month.

Now I'm depressed lols

I’ve thought about working for them but I’m pretty sure they require you know Japanese. I’m probably wrong though because that doesn’t sound right

Well yeah it makes sense, Nintendo is an important part of many people's childhoods so it would be a popular company to work for.
I don't know if I would want to personally, I think it would ruin some of the "Nintendo Magic" for me

@Mordridakon I think the same thing every time I see a picture of their building. It doesn't look anything like you'd expect from the company that created Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Metroid.

Wow. Local government employee is the number one most attractive position to graduates? What a great Japan Fact!

@SimplyCinnamon53

Cool, what would you want to do for them?

Japanese requirements will likely depend on which kind of position you will be taking. I think most people at the departments in Europe and the US don't speak Japanese.

Only a few of the guys at Retro do, for instance. And I'm pretty sure Reggie doesn't, even if he practiced some phrases for various Nintendo Directs.

Nintendo Of Japan is different talk though. Not only are they likely to demand that you manage N3 or N2 in the Japanese Language Profeciency Test, but they quite rarely hire from outside Japan for any of their positions in the first place, from what I am told.

Apparently this Corey Bunnell guy moved to Japan, studied programming at Ritsumeikan, and got hired for wildlife programming on Breath of the Wild, so that's one way to do it.

@Pod Preferably something that only requires a high school degree since the current college degree I’m working on doesn’t have anything to do with Nintendo. I was hoping for maybe customer support in New York but sadly no job openings, and I don’t think I could get hired as assistant store manager

My first ever dream job was making Mario games, actually. I spent countless hours drawing Mario levels on paper and then completing them... also on paper. But when I told my parents that I want to make Mario games when I'm older, they told me that only people owning the license can produce mario games. I still remember how this literally ruined my day and destroyed my dreams and future plans xD.

I start my degree in Software Engineering next week so of course I'd love to work for Nintendo but I'm a realist. The only way I'd get to work with them would be through the Nindies program.

@SimplyCinnamon53
You might find that your degree becomes useful in other ways than anticipated, but I say that without knowing what you study at all. ^_^;;
And if you're not set on a development job, then having good recommendations from a customer support job in a more/less related field is likely to help you when an opening does arise.

Same with store jobs. If you can sell other specialty goods and manage a store sufficiently well, you can sell pokémon toys and Nintendo games.

Reggie was biz wiz at VH1 before joining Nintendo fifteen years ago. Before that, he was vice prez at a Chinese food company. He was at Pizza Hut and Guinness. All food things. He holds a bachelor's in applied economics, and now he's the head of NOA.

You can fight your way anywhere.

@Pod To be honest, N3 means you can barely speak, and while N2 is construed as "business level", it really is not sufficient to work as a professional in an all-Japanese environment, unless you add up on top a lot more practice, but then JLPT will become irrelevant anyway. Any company that can afford to be an extremely selective hirer (like those on the list) would certainly not be satisfied with an N2 level.

@Don I don't live in Japan, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but they probably play games while riding the train. That may be why they like handhelds and mobile games more than the rest of the world.

@lifer
Aye, I mention it only because some media production companies in Japan have proficient english speaking helming many departments, and they only require N3 or N2 because of the legal issues associated with getting a work visa in Japan without these, last time I educated myself on the matter.

I'd expect Nintendo to want you to be very fluent, though this begs the question of just how proficient Bunnell was when the Zelda team hired him.

@Pod Ah, yes, that makes a lot of sense.
I think developers will actually have better English knowledge than the average salary man, and depending on the team, I imagine they may not have such a strict requirement? But remembering his story, he probably studied to quite the proficient level. Must be rather interesting to work there every day.

@Don They play them on the train.

@Mordridakon Well it is Kyoto, not Tokyo. The cool stuff is all old and the new stuff has to be kept boring.

@Pod Thank you for your positivity! I’m majoring in Emrgency Medicine so maybe they have a health department? My only work ecperience has been as a receptionist at a hospital but I’m not working there forever so maybe I can find a job that will help me later to work at Nintendo. Thanks for the advice

@SimplyCinnamon53
No problem. Your desire is your strongest asset, really.

@Don for an adult? Either you dont have time to game or you spend your remaining free time gaming. Thats why adult gamers here are a little frowned upon. And dont believe people saying that they can play on the train. You dont even have space to move your arms much more play a handheld.

@NIN10DOXD maybe if your a kid or a uni student? But a working adult? The train is so cramped during rush hours!

@FlimFlam only if your a kid or a college student, train is too cramped during rush hour for working adults to play

@jockmahon It is changing now, but for the most part that’s very accurate.

That’s one of the reasons I quitted working at an office and now I work from home as a freelancer. Never going back to an office unless I have absolutely no other choice.

@Mordridakon I see what you mean. I kinda like it though. Reminds me of my Gamecube...

Well good luck to them. Where I live a diploma really doesn't mean anything. All that matters here is having 2-3 years of experience in "the industry". So if you don't get a placement while you're in uni then it's Game Over. It's very stressful. 😅 I still dream about someday working with/for Nintendo. Hopefully someday I'll get the experience I need to kick-start my career.

Who in their right name wants to work for government rather than a creative company like Nintendo or even Amazon? That's nuts. They must want a job for life--unless "civic duty" is seen as a higher calling in Japan--rather than a challenge.

@AirElephant Like you said, working for the government in Japan means a job for life with all the benefits included. In one word: stability.

Working for any other company means that you don’t know if you’ll still be working there next year.

Government work might be dull, but it’s there for life and that’s a very big incentive in these uncertain times.

Japan likes Google and Apple more than Nintendo. Patriotism is fading in Nippon, the land of mobile phone gamers.

Living in Japan and working as an ALT I have learned that I would never want to work as a business man or a "salaryman" as they call it in Japan. They get extremely demanding hours, rarely see their families and generally have to give up most of their hobbies... or never sleep.

Of course none of that is a universal truth, but it is pretty par for the course here. Thankfully an ALT is not held to those standards. lol If the job were that demanding, I'd have probably never signed up, let alone just begun my 4th year.

That's only for the official business. I bet "Yakuza expendable goon" comes first.

Nintendo is my number 2 dream job! My number 1 dream job is astronaut.

Nobody wants to work at Sony.

They need to hire people who can actually make games for them. So far their only 1st party AAA exclusive games can be counted on one hand!!

@maruse @Heavyarms55 You know I always here these horror stories about work life in Japan. And then I hear the flip side that jobs (including outside government) are pretty secure overall there which is the other half of the bargain. But the one commonality is that most of the time when I start to think Japan must be horrible based on the working conditions compared to other places, I forget to notice the asterisk that points out "Worse than the rest of earth. US not included."

@NEStalgia There definitely are pros and cons. You are a lot less likely in Japan to be laid off for selfish or asinine reasons. In Japan, if your company is failing, you can be reasonably confident your boss is losing his job with you and getting the blame. Unlike in America, where CEOs will lay off 3000 people and still get a fat bonus at the end of the year and stock options... Also in Japan you generally don't need to worry about health insurance, since Japan's system is wildly better than the US. It still has issues, it isn't perfect, but its extremely unlikely that heathcare will also bankrupt you.

So yeah, it isn't all bad by any means. But what is bad, can be really bad, and what is good, can be pretty darn good.

Lol, you would think Nintendo scored higher. No Sony on the list. What's with all the American company's?

@Mordridakon they don't want kids and Pokemon Trainers snooping around.