By Alana Hagues

Copyright nintendolife

A new report states that Nintendo of America is cutting loose around 200 long-time contractor jobs as it has decided to outsource its customer support services ahead of the Switch 2’s first holiday season.

This report comes from IGN’s Rebekah Valentine, who spoke to numerous customer support staff and sources under anonymity. Many confirmed to the outlet that they were told back in March 2025 that their contracts were being cut and gradually being phased out. None of the contractors have received direct communication from Nintendo itself, hearing instead through their agencies about the news.

Now these contractors are expected to train their replacements, many of whom are based in South American countries, primarily in Brazil, Argentina, and Nicaragua. These have previously been limited to first-line contacts who act as representatives to send the information and problem on to the main team in the US.

There are concerns from the sources that there will, “in the immediate term” be a drop in quality of support, particularly once the fully-trained agents leave, with the Big N seeming to prioritise saving.

While the new contractors all speak English, some IGN spoke to said there were “a number of communication issues internally” with an “increase in customers becoming irate, belligerent, and even racially abusive”.

Nintendo of America, in a response to IGN, has stated that “the claims shared with IGN include inaccurate information” and that “our top priority is to provide excellent customer support, and we are pleased that customer satisfaction with the service provided by all our partners remains positive.” The company did not respond to requests on which claims were inaccurate.

Here is NoA’s full response:

“While we have nothing to announce about our internal business activities, the claims shared with IGN include inaccurate information. At Nintendo of America, we are extremely thankful to have partnered with several companies and their talented contractors over the years to deliver high-quality customer service experiences. We continue to evolve and expand our customer service model with external partners that have deep experience in all the markets we serve across the Americas. This approach allows us to support the full scope of our customer service mission in both North America and our growing Latin American markets, and better scale to seasonal needs for consistent support. As always, our top priority is to provide excellent customer support, and we are pleased that customer satisfaction with the service provided by all our partners remains positive.”

One source told IGN that Nintendo of America normally works with two US-based agencies to fill customer support roles, including fraud, chargebacks, chatlogs, phone and email support, refunds, repair support and more. “There are a few people remaining on-site overseeing it, but essentially it’s all going away.”

A former employee acknowledges the nature of being a contractor and that “there was no guarantee to return after contract breaks”, but feels that Nintendo could have approached things differently. “I personally feel as though Nintendo could have easily hired on a bunch of the contractors as FTE and had better results while still saving money from having to use the agencies.”

“It’s also such a volatile economy to be dumping all of us out into”, with others echoing similar concerns, especially with the rise of generative AI in the customer support field: ““A lot of us are feeling betrayed, empty, like almost led-on in a way.”

This is sadly not the first time Nintendo has cut contractor jobs suddenly. Back in 2024, NoA downsized and restructured its testing department, with a reported 100+ contractors losing their jobs.