September 22, 2025 – According to a report from IGN yesterday, Nintendo of America has made the decision to outsource its customer support operations to South American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, and Nicaragua. This move has led to the loss of jobs for approximately 200 contract workers in the United States who had been handling customer support tasks for a long time.
These contract employees were previously responsible for a wide range of customer support functions. Their duties encompassed almost every aspect of customer service, such as answering phone calls, responding to emails, processing refunds, dealing with account suspensions, conducting fraud investigations, providing repair support, and facilitating remote data transfers.
Although they were classified as contract workers, in an attempt to bypass the U.S. labor law requirements for converting them to permanent employees, they were typically offered 11 – month contracts. After the end of each contract, they had to leave their jobs for two months to claim unemployment benefits before being able to renew their contracts.
Some of these contract workers revealed that they only received limited medical insurance through an agency, and the benefits provided by Nintendo mainly consisted of occasional free or discounted games. One contract worker said, “My colleagues and I have actually been working here for many years.”
Sources close to the situation disclosed that Nintendo did not directly communicate with the affected employees. Some contracts were even terminated early without any severance pay. Moreover, some U.S. employees who were still under contract were asked to train their South American counterparts. And the new hires were not subject to the same rigorous screening process as before. IGN’s report also raised concerns that as the U.S. team gradually withdraws, the quality of Nintendo’s customer service may decline in the short term.
Many of the contract workers believe that this outsourcing decision was primarily driven by cost considerations. It is reported that the monthly minimum wage in Brazil is approximately equivalent to 245,whichtranslatestoabout1.53 per hour. In contrast, the minimum hourly wage in Washington State is $16.66.
In response to IGN’s report, Nintendo of America stated, “Although we have no announcements regarding internal business activities, the report contains inaccurate information. Over the years, we have been deeply grateful for our collaboration with multiple companies and their outstanding contract workers in delivering high – quality customer service experiences. We will continue to work with experienced external partners across the Americas to develop and expand our customer service model. This approach helps us support our service needs in North and Latin America and scale up according to seasonal demands. Our top priority remains providing excellent customer support, and we are pleased to see that customer satisfaction with the services provided by all our partners remains positive.”
IGN noted that Nintendo did not specify which parts of the report were “inaccurate,” and the outsourcing companies involved also remained silent on the matter.
