With the purchase of a patch of land adjacent to its Kyoto headquarters for five billion yen, Nintendo has paved the way to its goal of erecting a new development centre by 2027.
Announced via the company’s corporate website, the purchase will see the around 10k square metre piece of land, become home to a 12-floor building, tentatively named Corporate Headquarters Development Center, Building No. 2. An inspiring name - maybe the people at Nintendo have been listening to a lot of Blur.
Nintendo believes this project “will carry an important role on (sic) reinforcing its R&D”, building upon a string of other recent property and studio acquisitions by the publisher.
Nintendo Buys Land Next to Japan Headquarters
The purchase of the site, formerly home to a Foundation Support Factory and a Disaster Prevention Centre, isn’t the only land Nintendo has bought recently, with a Nikkei report from December 2021 having revealed two office expansions the company is set to make in May 2022, as reported by VGC.
These expansions, which will see Nintendo employees move into rented space on the 6th and 7th floors of the Kyoto City Waterworks Bureau’s new government building, will come with up to 160 million yen ($1.27 million/£979k) in subsidies as part of Kyoto City’s Corporate Location Promotion System, depending upon the number of new employees Nintendo hires.
All of this work is reflective of a company enjoying a period of increased profitability on the back of the success of the Nintendo Switch, as revealed during a November 2021 management briefing, when Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa announced plans to invest additional money into expanding both the company’s internal game development capability and its portfolio of non-game entertainment software assets.
These funds aren’t being spent solely on property either, with Nintendo also having formally purchased SRD Co. Ltd, formerly one of its long-time independent development partners, in February.
With all of these expansions, Nintendo seems to be doing a good job of securing its future in an industry that has been rocked by huge acquisitions from both Microsoft and Sony since the start of the year.