Bloomberg: Bandai Namco Cuts Staff After Halting Projects, Including for Naruto, One Piece, Nintendo

October 17, 2024

Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Bandai Namco Holdings has halted or canceled development on a number of unannounced games, including an unannounced title which Nintendo commissioned, as well as unannounced titles for the Naruto and One Piece franchises. The company is reportedly making cuts to its 1,300-strong workforce due to the canceled projects.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, the company has moved roughly 200 employees to so-called oidashi beya, or “expulsion rooms,” to encourage them to resign voluntarily, with about 100 employees having done so. Workers who are assigned to oidashi beya are not given tasks, but their lack of work may affect severance pay, so employees are implicitly encouraged to resign. Such methods to encourage voluntary resignation are an unspoken practice in some Japanese companies to skirt around the country’s labor laws.

Bandai Namco told Bloomberg that employees “may need to wait a certain amount of time” before new assignments after canceled projects, but that it does eventually reassign such employees, and denies the existence of oidashi beya practices within the company.

Bandai Namco Entertainment recently ended service for its Tales of the Rays smartphone game on July 23, after seven years of operation. The game was the last remaining one of Bandai Namco Entertainment‘s five Tales of smartphone games. Bandai Namco Online‘s Blue Protocol game is also ending its service on January 18, with the game’s planned Western release also canceled. Bandai Namco Entertainment‘s Synduality Echo of Ada mecha extraction shooter game is launching on January 24, nearly three years since it was first announced as part of a larger mixed-media franchise that included a manga and the Synduality: Noir television anime.