96% of 2026's games job losses hit North America and Europe, while Nintendo, Konami and Capcom keep 97% of staff or more

Amir Satvat has run the ASGC Games Industry Layoffs Tracker since 2022. Walking Edge through this year's job cuts, he set Japan apart [1]. Nintendo gets most of the attention, he said, but Konami and Capcom also keep 97% of their staff or more [1][2]. This article reflects the situation as of 26 September 2026, and the quotes come from Eurogamer's and GamesRadar's write-ups of the interview rather than from Edge itself.

57,628 jobs gone, and 96% of this year's losses in North America and Europe

By Satvat's count, the games industry as a whole lost 57,628 jobs between 2022 and 2026 [1][2]. Of the jobs lost in 2026 alone, 96% were in North America and Europe [1]. He said there was a 12-to-18-month stretch when he estimated that more than half of all layoffs worldwide were in California [1][2]. For a developer at a traditional triple-A studio in North America or western Europe, he believes this is as bad as the 1983 crash [1][2].

Eurogamer's list of this year's cuts starts with Xbox, which announced 3,200 layoffs and saw four studios depart. Bungie, EA, PUBG Productions, Take-Two, Warner Bros. and Epic are on it too [1]. Epic's Tim Sweeney has called the current situation the worst games industry crash since the 1980s [1].

Smaller teams, and executive pay that stops at a few million

Team size came first in Satvat's explanation. Japanese teams, as he understands it, tend to be much smaller and leaner. They were not swept up in the live-service trend, nor in mega-blockbusters built by 500-person teams [1][2].

Executive salaries came next. Japanese executives still make good money, he said, but the figure is two or three million dollars, not 30 million [1][2]. Eurogamer set Western pay beside that: the $38.6 million EA chief Andrew Wilson received last year, and the $42.1 million Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick earned in 2022. Both companies laid off staff this year [1].

When cuts come, overseas contractors go first

Japanese studios do cut staff, and Satvat was clear that Japan is not a utopia [1]. What differs is who leaves first. When a studio has to take people off its budget, he said, the usual practice in Japan is to start with contractors based outside the country and protect the core staff at home [1]. The layoffs still happen. They land on different people.

Capcom, Nintendo and Koei Tecmo this year, and the numbers still missing

Eurogamer read this structure alongside how Japanese companies have fared this year. Capcom kept its run going with PRAGMATA, Resident Evil Requiem and Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and Nintendo keeps breaking sales records. Koei Tecmo has said openly that it counts on smaller titles to keep growing [1]. Eurogamer offered that link as a possibility rather than a conclusion. Satvat's advice to Western studios was to keep teams small, pay executives reasonably and focus on what they do well instead of chasing trends [1].

We could not read the original Edge interview, so every quote above is as reported by the two outlets. How the 97% retention figure was measured and over what period, and which years the pay comparison uses, would have to be checked against the original. Eurogamer describes the 96% as a share of jobs lost, but we could not confirm from the tracker's own data whether it counts layoff events or affected workers. Neither article gives a figure for how many people are laid off inside Japan each year.

Sources

[1] Dom Peppiatt. Why do Japanese studios suffer fewer layoffs? Because they have smaller teams and don't pay their execs $30m, says one expert. Eurogamer, 18 September 2026.

[2] Dustin Bailey. Japanese companies like Nintendo, Capcom, and Konami are healthier because they have smaller teams, don't have frequent layoffs, and don't pay executives $30 million, says expert. GamesRadar+, 17 September 2026.