Nintendo Boss Punishes Self

It has emerged that the Nintendo boss, Satoru Iwata, will be cut in half to atone for the weak sales of the Wii U!  Well, his wages anyway.

The other top brass in Nintendo will also take pay cuts of 20-30% for five months, to help Nintendo claw back some of the money seemingly wasted on their answer to a next-gen console. The already weak sales weren't helped by Sony and Microsoft announcing the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but personally I feel the Wii U was under-marketed.  If they had shown it was more than just a Wii with an expensive controller, they might have sold more than 6 million consoles since launch - far short of the 9 million they originally forecast.

Although I only know of Japanese honour from anime and Yakuza movies, it is apparently quite common for a CEO to take a pay cut if the company performs worse than expected. Iwata himself took a similar cut when the 3DS didn't live up to expectations.

Mario himself has been helping the company for decades, taking part-time jobs as a doctor and go-kart racer on top of his full-time plumber gig.  Who knows how many more jobs he will need to take on if Nintendo doesn't have a solid 'win' soon?