Saudi Arabia reduces its stake in Nintendo, despite reports to the contrary

Widespread reporting said the PIF would be increasing its stake, not reducing it

Nintendo

For the past few days, widespread reporting has suggested that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) would be increasing its nearly 10% stake in Nintendo. These claims circulated in the media, on social media platforms like Reddit and Twitter, and were largely accepted as fact. Despite this, however, the exact opposite has happened, and the PIF has instead reduced its stake in the company. 

As reported by CNBC (via GamesIndustry.biz), a Japanese regulatory filing has revealed that the PIF’s stake in Nintendo has been reduced to 7.54%, down from the 8.58% it held previously. It’s still up on the PIF’s initial investment, though, which was a touch over 5% back in 2022. 

Saudi Arabia’s PIF bought more Nintendo stock, becoming the company’s biggest external shareholder, in February last year. The controversial move was largely received poorly by gamers, who worried that the Saudis would leverage their economic power to change or influence the content of games. 

That concern wasn’t without merit, given the country’s history of censorship, with a number of high profile titles either banned or heavily edited in the country. Even big games, like God of War and The Last of Us, weren’t immune to this, with the former being banned for violence and non-conforming religious content and the latter being banned for depicting same-sex romances. 

Reports that the PIF would increase its investment in Nintendo started spreading earlier this week after vice chairman of the PIF-owned Savvy Games Group and Saudi Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud said that increasing its stake in companies like Nintendo was “always a possibility.” The PIF also holds shares in Embracer Group, EA, Take-Two, and Capcom, among others. 

The Saudi Prince also visited Kojima Productions last year and met Hideo Kojima, in a move that saw many concerned that the PIF would be buying a stake in the Death Stranding developer. As of yet, those concerns don’t seem to have played out.