Nintendo Boss Takes The Blame For 3DS Sales, Cuts His Paycheck In Half

When companies go through a rough patch, it’s pretty rare to see the big man upstairs step up in an awesome way. Take RIM for example. In the middle of security troubles in India and amidst tough competition from Apple and others — right before a major product, the BlackBerry PlayBook was launched — co-CEO Mike Lazaridis shut down a BBC interview not only making himself look overly defensive, but making the company look frazzled. Today Nintendo’s president took a different route.

After the company’s disappointing quarterly results yesterday (and first-ever quarterly loss), Satoru Iwata told shareholders that he takes the blame, reports DigitalTrends. As a result, he’s cutting his paycheck in half. A good deal of Nintendo’s quarterly losses can be attributed to the 3DS, which hasn’t been selling as well as the Japanese company had hoped. Nintendo slashed its expected net profit from 1.4 billion to 258 million — a massive downgrade.

Obviously, half of Mr. Iwata’s paycheck isn’t going to cover those costs. Other high-level executives will also see a slash to their paychecks, between 20 and 30 percent. To respond to slow 3DS sales, Nintendo yesterday cut the price of its portable 3D gaming system from $249 to $169, which makes the device incredibly difficult to profit from.

Iwata acknowledged this in the meeting, and said he expects the price cut to help grow demand, which should then cut costs of production. Iwata also recognized the fact that a big problem with the 3DS is a lack of games, an issue the company plans to address ASAP.