Wow, a necropost that is actually on topic :O

Cool thread though, interesting that the number keeps going up...also, I think that the number of change is more important than the percentage when comparing stuff like this....

I came in here ready to bust some heads for ancient thread bumping, and left positively surprised.

Good work, sir. Keep it up.

Time for another updated to my OP analyzing the number of employees at the Nintendo.

Year ended March 31, 2006: 3,150 employees (Wii release)
Year ended March 31, 2007: 3,373 employees [+223]
Year ended March 31, 2008: 3,768 employees [+395]
Year ended March 31, 2009: 4,130 employees [+362]
Year ended March 31, 2010: 4,425 employees [+295]
Year ended March 31, 2011: 4,712 employees [+287] (Nintendo 3DS release)
Year ended March 31, 2012: 4,928 employees [+216] (Wii U release)
Year ended March 31, 2013: 5,080 employees [+152]
Year ended March 31, 2014: 5,222 employees [+142]
Year ended March 31, 2015: 5,120 employees [-102]
Year ended March 31, 2016: 5,064 employees [-56]
Year ended March 31, 2017: 5,166 employees [+102] (Nintendo Switch release)
Year ended March 31, 2018: 5,501 employees [+335]
Year ended March 31, 2019: 5,944 employees [+443]
Year ended March 31, 2020: 6,200 employees [+256]
Year ended March 31, 2021: 6,574 employees [+374]

Latest full-year financial statement: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2021/210506e.pdf

There's a noticable slowdown in the number of hirings between 2013-2014 and even a decrease in 2015-2016, a period where Nintendo had financial difficulties (Wii U selling way below expectations). I bet this created a tricky situation, because at the same time HD games demands more developer resources than former-generation games, and great first party games were needed to make the next hardware generation, the Nintendo Switch, successful. The situation was helped by porting Wii U games instead of developing completely new games from scratch, and slowing down support for the Nintendo 3DS. With the success of the Nintendo Switch, the headcount is increasing again, supplying current generation with new software and preparing for what's next.

Nintendo games will always review and sell well, knowing this they don't need to staff up. Even Wind Waker and Skyword Sword got rave reviews.

I hope this thread is necrobumped every year until Internet 2.0.

Cool necrobump, cool thread.
After six years I would've forgotten about this thread lol.
See you next decade.

Lol, you make no sense.

He does make sense. Nintendo games sell and review well no matter what, so they don't really need to step up anything, not even labor force.

Is he wrong? Yeah, he is. 

I admire thornstrom’s dedication to this thread.

I’m predicting that when more numbers are released next year they’ll show the last year of the current rate of expansion of employees before they consolidate.

Nice thread!

Interesting to see where they were just 10 years ago compared to where they are now.