Nintendo of Europe Lays Off 130 Employees in Germany

Bad news for the German offices of Nintendo of Europe as the Big N is now the latest company to be affected by layoffs happening across the industry.

According to GamesIndustry, Nintendo has laid off roughly 130 of its employees at its Germany-based offices. This series of layoffs mainly happened at the company's Großostheim location in an attempt to consolidate the country staff over to its offices in Frankfurt, which also suffered some cutbacks as well.

"Nintendo of Europe has entered into a consultation process on a number of changes it is intending to make to its European business which, in the long term, will better enable the European business to adapt to the rapidly changing business environment," reads a statement released by Nintendo. 

This news comes less than a month after a report that Nintendo has had its third annual operating loss in a row of roughly $457 million. The company believes has attributed this loss mainly from underwhelming Wii U sales across the board along with Nintendo not meeting its expected sales figures for its 3DS handheld.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has openly voiced his rigid stance against laying off staff for the sake of improving the finances of his company during a shareholders' meeting in 2013:

"If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease. I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world. I know that some employers publicize their restructuring plan to improve their financial performance by letting a number of their employees go, but at Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo's business in the long run."