Japanese software developer SalesNow recently released a ranking of domestic game companies based on the average yearly income of employees. Nintendo was the third highest ranked game developer on the list. Notably, Square Enix did not rank among the top 20.
Covering the period from June 2024 to June 2025, the ranking is based on data from SalesNow DB, one of Japan’s largest corporate information databases, covering about 5.4 million companies. According to the press release by SalesNow, their database pulls information from commercial and real estate registries, tax office disclosures, Japan’s government gazette, and data made public by government agencies and companies. In other words, these figures may differ from information officially disclosed by the companies in question.
According to the findings, the company with the highest average annual income in the game industry in the past year was multi-industry conglomerate Sony Group, at approximately 11.13 million yen (roughly $75,000 USD based on recent exchange rates). In second place was video game and toy manufacturing giant Bandai Namco Holdings, with an average salary of around 10.95 million yen (roughly $75k). These were the only two companies to exceed the 10-million-yen mark.
| Rank | Company | Average yearly income (JPY and rough approximate in USD) |
| 1 | Sony Group Corporation | 11,132,231 ($75k USD) |
| 2 | Bandai Namco Holdings | 10,950,000 ($74k USD) |
| 3 | Nintendo | 9,626,857 ($65k USD) |
| 4 | Sega Sammy Holdings | 8,791,596 ($59k USD) |
| 5 | Akatsuki | 8,557,000 ($57k USD) |
| 6 | DeNA | 8,540,000 ($57k USD) |
| 7 | Capcom | 8,328,000 ($56k USD) |
| 8 | Koei Tecmo Holdings | 8,105,686 ($54k USD) |
| 9 | GungHo Online Entertainment | 7,504,000 ($50k USD) |
| 10 | Bank of Innovation | 7,421,000 ($50k USD) |
| 11 | Crooz | 7,290,000 ($49k USD) |
| 12 | Nexon | 7,256,000 ($49k USD) |
| 13 | Drecom | 7,188,223 ($48k USD) |
| 14 | Konami Group Corporation | 7,108,375 ($48k USD) |
| 15 | Digital Hearts Holdings | 6,743,000 ($45k USD) |
| 16 | Colopl | 6,719,000 ($45k USD) |
| 17 | Imagineer | 6,528,603 ($44k USD) |
| 18 | KLab | 6,449,000 ($43k USD) |
| 19 | MyNet | 6,339,917 ($42k USD) |
| 20 | FuRyu | 6,231,302 ($42k USD) |
Nintendo came in third at about 9.63 million yen (around $65k USD), followed by Sega in fourth and mobile game developer Akatsuki in fifth. Companies ranked 4th to 8th seem to fall within the 8-million-yen range, while those ranked 9th to 14th are in the 7-million-yen range. The remaining companies in the 15th to 20th spots all had average salaries of over 6 million yen.
While US dollar conversions may make these figures look low overall when compared to average salaries in North America, GameBusiness.jp highlights that the average annual income of Japanese workers across all industries was around 4.26 million yen in 2024, which points to how high the average salaries in this ranking are in a domestic context.
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