6 ms·

Nintendo is a 132 year old company (111 at the time this happened), with a "war chest" of $10 billion. They've been successful for far longer than Microsoft hav

Nintendo is a 132 year old company (111 at the time this happened), with a "war chest" of $10 billion. They've been successful for far longer than Microsoft have existed. I don't know what Nintendo would get out of being acquired, and I'm not certain that Microsoft would be able to put together a convincing acquisition deal.

im3w1l 6y ago
132 year old? So are some random family restaurants. How does $10bil of money matter either way? Microsofts market cal is north of $1T, while Nintendos is less than $100B. And finally the question is not what Nintendo would get out of it. The question is what their shareholders stand to gain.
- thedmstdmstdmst 6y ago
  $10 bil of money means Nintendo has all the money they need on hand to continue to develop for their markets or new markets so what impetus is there to be acquire or merge? Nintendo is not a very big company comparatively.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    Ah, merging to get access to money, yes I suppose they don't need that. My uneducated guess is that the reason for a merger would rather be merging the xbox with the switch, and merging the game libraries too. Can't say I know whether that's a good idea.
    - thedmstdmstdmst 6y ago
      Yeah that could happen but why? The architectures are different. What benefit is there? Many Japanese companies actually treat North American Market as a secondary thought, Nintendo in a sense is one of them.
- jcelerier 6y ago
  > The question is what their shareholders stand to gain. thankfully, not the whole world thinks like that.
  - ksk 6y ago
    Why is that so bad? Shareholders are the owners of the company.
    - Ma8ee 6y ago
      It’s a common misunderstanding that the only purpose of a company is to make shareholders happy.
      - greatgirl 6y ago
        It's not a misunderstanding its how companies work. If you make shareholders unhappy you simply risk them leaving. Thats why on average companies do things that make them happy. Oh, also the shareholders pick the board and the board does things for the company. You can see the relationship now?
        Ma8ee 6y ago
        I know how companies are governed, and it is of course an empirical fact that most large listed American companies are run to maximise stockholder value. But that does not mean that it is the purpose of all, or even most companies. People run companies with a variety of reasons, including things like having fun or making the world a better place. More importantly, companies have moral obligations not only to stock holders, but to the employees, the environment, and the communities they operate in.
      - ksk 6y ago
        You're right - that is a misunderstanding. I think you accidentally replied to the wrong comment seeing as I didn't say or imply that.
    - epistasis 6y ago
mywittyname 6y ago
> I don't know what Nintendo would get out of being acquired, Money. Old companies are merged, acquired, or spun-off all the time. It's completely possible that Nintendo would prefer to spin off portions of their business which, while profitable, no longer align with their primary markets. Consider companies like General Electric; they started off producing equipment around electric power generation, installation, and use (lightbulbs and appliances), then they got into television, radio, computing, jet engines, health insurance, etc. Over the years they've spun off many of these divisions and today's GE looks nothing like OG GE.
- nolok 6y ago
  You might want to check the "portions" of Nintendo business to realize why not. Even in core console gaming, they're notorious for not actually owning many studios, including some you would assume they do given how long they're worked together. Notoriously, Nintendo didn't own Rare (who was a big studio for Nintendo bound games), didn't want to buy when they wanted to sold, and they ended up at Microsoft which is an acquisition that's very hard to spin as a success.
  - Danieru 6y ago
    No kidding, Nintedo doesn't even own Intelligent Systems and those guys used to develop the Devkit tooling. Get this: IS used to work from inside Nitendo's own factory. Granted, while Nintendo does not own these companies they have strong control. Just last year Nintendo moved all their developers in Tokyo into a single tower.
    - imbnwa 6y ago
      I wonder if this is related to what someone mentioned above in the thread whereby Japanese firms seem to value implicit, mutually beneficial behavior
      - MichaelZuo 6y ago
        Likely a lot of old school politicking behind the scenes too. Especially as they’re a Kyoto company.
SilasX 6y ago
You could probably cite similar figures about Netflix and Blockbuster when the former approached them.
- paxys 6y ago
  Netflix didn't approach Blockbuster to acquire it, but rather to get acquired.
- fomine3 6y ago
  I don't know whether Netflix started streaming service if they were acquired
jbob2000 6y ago
Nintendo would hopefully become higher quality under Microsoft, that's what they'd get out of it. Microsoft has shown they can culture a good developer ecosystem, Nintendo is awful for third party developers. Nintendo also struggles with new technology, their systems are always a step behind and they were critically late to having games on the app stores (the extreme success of Pokemon Go after a decade of thinking smartphones weren't worth it is an egg on the face of the Nintendo leadership). They really just have a strong brand, that's about all Nintendo has going for it. Microsoft can steward the brand like they did for Minecraft and it wouldn't lose any value, we'd just get higher quality games and hardware.
- bloodorange 6y ago
  Nintendo made so many brilliant games in the Mario franchise. Likewise with Zelda (and Metroid and there will be more if you look closely). Their consoles are typically robustly made. The controller-drift issue with Switch being a notable recent exception. As for their systems being "behind", the xbox and playstation motion sensing controllers came _after_ the Nintendo Wii made them popular. The Switch came with a new idea of a console which is both a handheld and one connected to a television. The 3DS came with a lenticular 3D display. Unless you measure being ahead/behind in the sole axis of computational power, they are setting trends and taking gaming to new places. They are a serious pain when it comes to how they hound fanmade products which might feature any of their IP, have a substandard system for online play, or a poor developer experience but being of sub-par quality is definitely more in microsoft's department than Nintendo's.
  - jbob2000 6y ago
    It's not good for a platform developer to be the only one making killer games. This is a lack of diversity that is a weakness. The titles you mention are the only good franchises on Switch, third party titles have not had the same success. Meanwhile, Microsoft has had huge third party success for their platform with Call of Duty and other publisher titles. No doubt Nintendo has been innovative with the control schemes for their systems, but nothing has really stuck. The 3D display was a gimmick, they even released a second version without it because it was so gimmicky. I'm not impressed with making a robust console in 2020 as a selling point. I have an iPhone, my expectations for robustness are higher now. The Switch is cheap and clunky and the screen is low res. Great, it can handle falls - welcome to 2005 electronics.
dtech 6y ago
> Nintendo is a 132 year old company (111 at the time this happened), with a "war chest" of $10 billion. Now they are successful, after the huge hits of the Wii, DS and Switch. Even with that the company was in a lot of trouble during the Wii U period in 2014, with executives taking 50% pay cuts. When this played out in 2000 it was during the N64 era, with GameCube being close to launch. While those were not failures per se, they were very, very far behind the PSOne and PS2 in terms of popularity.
- stopFalse 6y ago
  They have successfully brainwashed a generation. Fanboys think every Zelda game is the greatest of all time. I understand why Nintendo thinks they are in a strong position. They can sell low quality games and the people don't know better.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Everything lagged far behind PS1&2. Many even predicted the death of PC gaming during the PS2 era, so great was its dominance. PS2 still outsold PS3 for a long time after the latter console was released. Nintendo survived that era, Sega did not (as a console manufacturer).
- jeegsy 6y ago
  > executives taking 50% pay cuts. Something to be admired about their corporate culture over there
Mountain_Skies 6y ago
To me the interesting play would be to acquire Nintendo, move the Xbox division into the Nintendo division, and then spin that off into a new independent gaming company. Might be good for shareholder value in the end and put Microsoft in a better position to focus on their core enterprise cloud business while receiving fair value for its Xbox assets.
manojlds 6y ago
Nokia was founded before Nintendo. Nintendo was at its lowest point not long back with the WiiU. In 2000 they were looking at lacklustre performance with N64 and Gamecube. (and already fallen behind Sony)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
subsubzero 6y ago
As a huge fan of Nintendo I am glad this never happened. A few years later Nintendo released the Wii console which was revolutionary in allowing users to go beyond a physical joystick and incorporate movements in videogames. Also companies acquired by microsoft don't usually have a happy ending(layoffs, product stagnation) see - skype, linkedin, yammer etc

im3w1l 6y ago

132 year old? So are some random family restaurants. How does $10bil of money matter either way? Microsofts market cal is north of $1T, while Nintendos is less than $100B. And finally the question is not what Nintendo would get out of it. The question is what their shareholders stand to gain.

thedmstdmstdmst 6y ago
$10 bil of money means Nintendo has all the money they need on hand to continue to develop for their markets or new markets so what impetus is there to be acquire or merge? Nintendo is not a very big company comparatively.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  Ah, merging to get access to money, yes I suppose they don't need that. My uneducated guess is that the reason for a merger would rather be merging the xbox with the switch, and merging the game libraries too. Can't say I know whether that's a good idea.
  - thedmstdmstdmst 6y ago
    Yeah that could happen but why? The architectures are different. What benefit is there? Many Japanese companies actually treat North American Market as a secondary thought, Nintendo in a sense is one of them.
jcelerier 6y ago
> The question is what their shareholders stand to gain. thankfully, not the whole world thinks like that.
- ksk 6y ago
  Why is that so bad? Shareholders are the owners of the company.
  - Ma8ee 6y ago
    It’s a common misunderstanding that the only purpose of a company is to make shareholders happy.
    - greatgirl 6y ago
      It's not a misunderstanding its how companies work. If you make shareholders unhappy you simply risk them leaving. Thats why on average companies do things that make them happy. Oh, also the shareholders pick the board and the board does things for the company. You can see the relationship now?
      - Ma8ee 6y ago
        I know how companies are governed, and it is of course an empirical fact that most large listed American companies are run to maximise stockholder value. But that does not mean that it is the purpose of all, or even most companies. People run companies with a variety of reasons, including things like having fun or making the world a better place. More importantly, companies have moral obligations not only to stock holders, but to the employees, the environment, and the communities they operate in.
    - ksk 6y ago
      You're right - that is a misunderstanding. I think you accidentally replied to the wrong comment seeing as I didn't say or imply that.
  - epistasis 6y ago

mywittyname 6y ago

> I don't know what Nintendo would get out of being acquired, Money. Old companies are merged, acquired, or spun-off all the time. It's completely possible that Nintendo would prefer to spin off portions of their business which, while profitable, no longer align with their primary markets. Consider companies like General Electric; they started off producing equipment around electric power generation, installation, and use (lightbulbs and appliances), then they got into television, radio, computing, jet engines, health insurance, etc. Over the years they've spun off many of these divisions and today's GE looks nothing like OG GE.

nolok 6y ago
You might want to check the "portions" of Nintendo business to realize why not. Even in core console gaming, they're notorious for not actually owning many studios, including some you would assume they do given how long they're worked together. Notoriously, Nintendo didn't own Rare (who was a big studio for Nintendo bound games), didn't want to buy when they wanted to sold, and they ended up at Microsoft which is an acquisition that's very hard to spin as a success.
- Danieru 6y ago
  No kidding, Nintedo doesn't even own Intelligent Systems and those guys used to develop the Devkit tooling. Get this: IS used to work from inside Nitendo's own factory. Granted, while Nintendo does not own these companies they have strong control. Just last year Nintendo moved all their developers in Tokyo into a single tower.
  - imbnwa 6y ago
    I wonder if this is related to what someone mentioned above in the thread whereby Japanese firms seem to value implicit, mutually beneficial behavior
    - MichaelZuo 6y ago
      Likely a lot of old school politicking behind the scenes too. Especially as they’re a Kyoto company.

SilasX 6y ago

You could probably cite similar figures about Netflix and Blockbuster when the former approached them.

paxys 6y ago
Netflix didn't approach Blockbuster to acquire it, but rather to get acquired.
fomine3 6y ago
I don't know whether Netflix started streaming service if they were acquired

jbob2000 6y ago

Nintendo would hopefully become higher quality under Microsoft, that's what they'd get out of it. Microsoft has shown they can culture a good developer ecosystem, Nintendo is awful for third party developers. Nintendo also struggles with new technology, their systems are always a step behind and they were critically late to having games on the app stores (the extreme success of Pokemon Go after a decade of thinking smartphones weren't worth it is an egg on the face of the Nintendo leadership). They really just have a strong brand, that's about all Nintendo has going for it. Microsoft can steward the brand like they did for Minecraft and it wouldn't lose any value, we'd just get higher quality games and hardware.

bloodorange 6y ago
Nintendo made so many brilliant games in the Mario franchise. Likewise with Zelda (and Metroid and there will be more if you look closely). Their consoles are typically robustly made. The controller-drift issue with Switch being a notable recent exception. As for their systems being "behind", the xbox and playstation motion sensing controllers came _after_ the Nintendo Wii made them popular. The Switch came with a new idea of a console which is both a handheld and one connected to a television. The 3DS came with a lenticular 3D display. Unless you measure being ahead/behind in the sole axis of computational power, they are setting trends and taking gaming to new places. They are a serious pain when it comes to how they hound fanmade products which might feature any of their IP, have a substandard system for online play, or a poor developer experience but being of sub-par quality is definitely more in microsoft's department than Nintendo's.
- jbob2000 6y ago
  It's not good for a platform developer to be the only one making killer games. This is a lack of diversity that is a weakness. The titles you mention are the only good franchises on Switch, third party titles have not had the same success. Meanwhile, Microsoft has had huge third party success for their platform with Call of Duty and other publisher titles. No doubt Nintendo has been innovative with the control schemes for their systems, but nothing has really stuck. The 3D display was a gimmick, they even released a second version without it because it was so gimmicky. I'm not impressed with making a robust console in 2020 as a selling point. I have an iPhone, my expectations for robustness are higher now. The Switch is cheap and clunky and the screen is low res. Great, it can handle falls - welcome to 2005 electronics.

dtech 6y ago

> Nintendo is a 132 year old company (111 at the time this happened), with a "war chest" of $10 billion. Now they are successful, after the huge hits of the Wii, DS and Switch. Even with that the company was in a lot of trouble during the Wii U period in 2014, with executives taking 50% pay cuts. When this played out in 2000 it was during the N64 era, with GameCube being close to launch. While those were not failures per se, they were very, very far behind the PSOne and PS2 in terms of popularity.

stopFalse 6y ago
They have successfully brainwashed a generation. Fanboys think every Zelda game is the greatest of all time. I understand why Nintendo thinks they are in a strong position. They can sell low quality games and the people don't know better.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
Everything lagged far behind PS1&2. Many even predicted the death of PC gaming during the PS2 era, so great was its dominance. PS2 still outsold PS3 for a long time after the latter console was released. Nintendo survived that era, Sega did not (as a console manufacturer).
jeegsy 6y ago
> executives taking 50% pay cuts. Something to be admired about their corporate culture over there

Mountain_Skies 6y ago

To me the interesting play would be to acquire Nintendo, move the Xbox division into the Nintendo division, and then spin that off into a new independent gaming company. Might be good for shareholder value in the end and put Microsoft in a better position to focus on their core enterprise cloud business while receiving fair value for its Xbox assets.

manojlds 6y ago

Nokia was founded before Nintendo. Nintendo was at its lowest point not long back with the WiiU. In 2000 they were looking at lacklustre performance with N64 and Gamecube. (and already fallen behind Sony)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

subsubzero 6y ago

As a huge fan of Nintendo I am glad this never happened. A few years later Nintendo released the Wii console which was revolutionary in allowing users to go beyond a physical joystick and incorporate movements in videogames. Also companies acquired by microsoft don't usually have a happy ending(layoffs, product stagnation) see - skype, linkedin, yammer etc