In a recent corporate management policy briefing, various figures at Nintendo were asked about the growing number of women gamers and if the company reflected that in its workforce. The answers were very interesting.

For anyone that knows about the various talent in Japanese game development, it is far more varied in terms of its workforce compared to in the West.

Anyway, the first to respond to the question about Nintendo’s staffing regarding women was Shinya Takahashi.

There are many female developers in the software development departments. Especially, there are many design works involved in developing software, and very high number of females among our designers. Many of them have children, and we have created an environment to work with comfort even for those who have children. I think that it is a very good workplace where women can participate actively and find satisfaction in their work.

This was then echoed by Shigeru Miyamoto, who commented on the subject in a similar fashion.

There are also many females actively involved in development. The director of the Animal Crossing series is a woman, and there are many female designers working actively. When I had chances to look at other development companies in Europe and the U.S., they give the impression that theyʼre overwhelmingly male-dominated. Compared to companies like that, Nintendo has a lot of female developers energetically working.

However, when it came to the hardware side of things, Ko Shiota explained that it is still fairly one-sided.

This is a common issue in Japan that there is not a high percentage of female workers in engineering professions like hardware development and systems development. And itʼs true in our company that compared to software development, the percentage of female workers in hardware development is low. However, Nintendoʼs work includes approach to unique technologies, so I believe the proportion of female employees could potentially change in the future.

While the current hardware staffing is still male-dominated, it’s clear that Nintendo is open and willing for that to change in the future, which is interesting and hopeful.

As for why Nintendo, and Japanese game studios in general, have a more varied makeup of staff is more down to the culture surrounding gaming in Japan.

Gaming has far less of a social stigma here and consequently, is more open and available to everyone. The fact that Nintendo and other Japanese game companies have more women is more down to this than anything else.

I am just glad this situation has been pointed out and especially by Nintendo, who have an excellent track record of making wonderful games. However, I think if we want to see something similar occur in the U.S. and Europe, then gaming itself needs to be accepted more openly in a cultural sense.

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