A Japanese blogger and professor named Murahashi Kuriki, who applied to Nintendo in 2015 but was rejected, shared in a thread translated by Automaton how Nintendo’s hiring process weeds people out before any consideration of their academic credentials.
What He Says
- Kuriki says he’d heard Nintendo doesn’t use an “academic background filter” (i.e. excluding candidates based on their school) when hiring new graduates. AUTOMATON
- But when he took Nintendo’s recruitment exam, he found the first web-aptitude test to be extremely difficult. It was so tough that he thought, “I understand now — they don’t need to filter by school because this test already filters out almost everyone.”
- He passed the web test, but failed at the technical interview. The interview included a programming exam where he had to write/think through algorithms properly. Vague or superficial knowledge was not enough.
Response from Motoi Okamoto
- Former Nintendo developer Motoi Okamoto (10 years at Nintendo, worked on Pikmin, Mario, Zelda) responded via Automaton’s translation.
- He said that academic credentials alone are superficial. What matters more are innate intelligence and passion for making games entertaining — qualities that align with Nintendo’s brand image.
Why This Matters
- This offers rare insight into how Nintendo screens candidates: the tests are built to be so hard that school prestige becomes irrelevant early in the process.
- The technical interview appears to demand real problem-solving ability, not just rote knowledge.
- It counters a common practice in Japan, where many large companies employ academic reputation filters; Nintendo seems to rely more on actual skill as demonstrated under pressure.
The above content is compiled by ModeZone, a fashion and entertainment magazine.
