I didn't even know they had an office in Taiwan, but if this means they are in financial trouble, then they will need to turn things around soon.

Well I don't know how true this is but an Nintendo AUS employee in 2011 told me that each region is responsible for their own budget, Meaning sales in that region generate revenue for advertising, events etc... he said that is why when Wii sales dropped of quickly there was less Nintendo involvement in events and the lack luster club nintendo items in AUS.

Saying that, things may have changed since then as magically they got some great items on club nintendo recently and even started up a facebook and twitter haha.

Unless NoC was based in Hong Kong, for tax reasons. Then shutting down Taiwan and just leaving the HK office would make perfect sense.

Didn't the eased restrictions in Hong Kong pretty much make Nintendo Taiwan redundant? Why keep open two offices when one can do the workload of two.

Eased restrictions in Hong Kong?

A Nintendo of Taiwan/NoT existed?! Well that is news to me. Though, hearing how a Nintendo of Hong Kong, also exists, it is a good decision to close down NoT, they don't need two offices for the same region, speciallyy when they are so close to each other, the employees will probably get transfer to NoHK or to a future NoC sooner or later, they need a NoC afterall, if they want to enter the Chinese Market like Microsoft is doing.

Just to explain the name Phuten. The Phu comes from Hiroshi Yamauchi's name which is 山内 溥 in Kanji. 溥 is pronounced phu in Chinese. The ten comes from the word Nintendo where the Kanji for ten (天) is pronounced the same in Chinese.

I was under the impression that the eased restrictions on game console sales in China was due to some kind of agreement in Hong Kong. After looking it up it seems to be Shanghai, not HK.

Though I still think its a good idea to consolidate the two offices. The regions aren't too far apart and Nintendo of Hong Kong can probably target Chinese consumers better and still provide service to Taiwan as well.

It's not like that's the only thing you can laugh at Sony fans for. Be creative!

Thats basically the reason.  Even the article kinda states it that way.