Nintendo 'Laughed Their Asses Off' At Xbox Acquisition Attempt In 2000

It's interesting how things have changed within Nintendo, now.

Nvidia handled the hardware for Switch while Nintendo handled the software.

@GamingFan4Lyf if Nvidia is responsible for Switch then surely AMD is responsible for Xbox and Playstation, all consoles have used parts from other companies

This could've been both good and bad for Nintendo. Microsoft buying them would've let them focus entirely on creating games and letting Microsoft focus on the hardware stuff. Microsoft ended up establishing one of the first online multiplayer services of the big three with Xbox Live on the original Xbox. Playing Halo online during that time was such a cool thing, imagine if Nintendo integrated that technology with GameCube games at the time like Mario Kart Double Dash (which actually had LAN support!) or Smash Bros Melee. That would've been huge and paved way for Nintendo games with incredible online infrastructure. Not to mention that developers like Rare would've been left alone and continued creating great games for Nintendo.

But then Nintendo wouldn't have been able to fulfil its "innovation first" principal by creating unique hardware and gaming experiences like the Wii. Moreover, we would've missed out on Xbox franchises like Halo, Forza, Fable etc. from being created. So at the end of the day, I think it was good that they didn't end up being acquired.

@carlos82 @Grot Nvidia was more involved than just providing the chip. It also developed the API:

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/

This is one of those which would have made absolutely no sense for Nintendo and they've been proven right with significantly more console sales than Xbox and software sales in another league. Coming off the back of the Sony fallout it seems odd that Microsoft even thought there was a chance of this happening.

For us as gamers I think its better that this never came to be as I doubt Nintendo would have flourished plus the Xbox franchises that would likely never come to be

I am glad things worked out the way they did, Microsoft has really built something great with Xbox and I think Nintendo needs to remain independent.

@Grot You had me until Satya. He has killed so many things I've been invested in that it isn't funny. Ruined github. Yea.... Satya is nope from me.

Balmer wasn't really any better, but atleast the turd-muffin understood diversifying.

Considering that Nintendo has sold more consoles then Microsoft and Sony combined, that would've been a very bad move for Nintendo. Glad it didn't pan out like that and each manufacturer now has their own platforms.

I used to be exclusively a Nintendo guy from the NES all the way to the wii(which I sold after a month)... I feel now that they have been coasting of nostalgia for soo long... They even was many consoles ago when I was still deluding myself that they are great.... Obviously they still make a few great games.. But they don't deserve the pedestal some people still stick them on.

Balmer just lives in an alternate reality.. I can imagine Nintendo just sat there laughing at them. I would have too at that time.. their handhelds were hardly weak.. and neither were their sales.
Lis we may never have ended up with the really cool idea of Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo having RGB colours.. they must have met at some point and decided on that? Or is it one of those things that just happened?

2000.....that was before Iwata and Reggie's time. That means they walked into Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln's office....with Hiroshi Yamauchi still at the helm. Basically a yakuza den and their hot-shot lawyer bouncer.....after working along side thir domestic rival with Dreamcast, and said "we'd like to buy you out."

That's actually hilarious......I think I can get another hour of laughter out of that image in my head. Balmer really had no idea what he was doing in this industry, and it showed.

Ironically it was Nintendo that had the more powerful hardware mere months after that....but hamstrung by their media choice and business policies. It would have been interesting to see a Nintendo Xbox with MS hardware and Nintendo games. There wouldn't have been a Wii, 3DS, or Switch, and yet GameCube would have been a very different machine.

With Square, that's a shocker though. Didn't Sony own a significant stake in Square at the time, the last of which was only sold off last year? It makes me wonder if they even knew who the stake holders were of who they tried to buy out if they were actually close to buying out a company their main competitor was on the board of.

@StylesT Say what you will about Nintendo, but at least their games aren't movies with directional inputs.....

I don’t think you can have two more diametrically opposed business plans than MS and Nintendo. Microsoft is all about the power to play 3rd party games, Nintendo is all about quirky stuff to make their perennial franchises slightly different. Without the quirky stuff like motion control and dual screens, I don’t think Nintendo would have kept things as fresh in their games.

And it’s not like they’ve suffered too much in the bank by not chasing graphical power.

In retrospect, very glad all those acquisitions failed, because under Gates and Ballmer, Microsoft was a terrible aquisition partner.

Still, would be incredible to think the impact of Microsoft being the one to aquire Square Soft. The Square/Enix merger didn't happen until 2003, so this was definitively just Square Soft.

I think Nintendo really kind of screwed the pooch with the Switch. Sure, it’s great for consumers. Combine the handheld with the home console is a much better deal, but think of all the sales they’re missing out on. They have around 60mil Switches and are considered a runaway success (oddly, many consider the Xbox a failure with 50+mil units sold), but when the DS and Wii were going simultaneously, that was over 250million units when added together. Combining them was great for consumers, but I’m not sure if it was great for Nintendo.

I think it was a good decision for Nintendo not to bite same as a few here.

Would have been a good chance to shift focus perhaps but I honestly think the console gaming market has benefitted from having three main players as opposed to two.

I like Nintendo hardware, it's their online that needs sorting.

I’m glad this didn’t happen. I love Xbox the way it is. And I haven’t wanted or owned a Nintendo console since the Wii. And I hated the Wii.

Thats a cool story

@electrolite77 Nintendo this year is going to have their most profitable year ever!!!!

@NEStalgia Someone else finally saying what I've been thinking of Sony for the past generation.

@NEStalgia clearly play more games as you have no idea what you're talking about. If it's sony, rockstar, cdpr etc... you are talking about.

They tried to acquire capcom too?

now it's too late. capcom is now capgod.

glad it didn't happened. Japanese studio needs japanese consoles.

@Hypnotoad107 Xbox one is not a failure economically. Economically! Although Satya said "why are we in gaming?"

@swedetrap how are other games more interactive?

@electrolite77 they'll get to 100 million switches sold EASILY. metroid prime 4, bayonetta 3 and botw 2 will make it get there. 2023 is where I think they'll reach it

@LiterallyDoNotCare Sony, yes, they still have some variety, for now, little by little they're shedding more and more variety and focusing more and more on moviegames. Rockstar....gta, no. Rdr2, yes.... And.... They don't make much more than that these days. I still associate them with Max Payne in my mind, but that's Remedy, rockstar only published the first. Cdpr, no, they make deep wrpgs like Bethesda, obsidian, and the old bioware before EA brutalized them. Buggy and broken AF but core rpgs all the same.

Only Sony's fully committed to the whole movie game thing.. Which makes sense since they're the only one with internal movie making expertise to lean on.

I don't hate the genre, but it's a one trick pony that burns itself out if overused. Like minions.

@electrolite77 Ahh, I wonder if the two events are related, Sony buying shares and the ms deal falling through. From another interview a few years back about the failure of og XB in Japan, they talked about how Sony seemed to have really odd pull over companies and discussed an example where people they were in talks with and seemed excited would, at events/business "parties" etc have these Sony people hovering around them, and they'd pretend they basically had no idea who the ms people were. I'm sure buyout news reached these...err... Chaperones? And a domestic investment would be a lot more favorable to a Japanese company.

@NEStalgia Just like nintendo's recycled games? not even talking about the Wii u ports. Smash, mario kart, a 3d mario and zelda on every gen. Latest new thing they made was splatoon and pokken. Astral chain I guess, but none of those games are big hitters compared to others. At least Sony makes new ips. If you are tired of the genre, stop playing triple A games because they will all try to be like that. That Sony, rockstar template. Wins awards and it sells. I wished nintendo were capable of making stories like that. Like subspace emissary (which is still the best smash because of that).

Xbox will floor fans with mostly western rpgs and fps now based on their triple A studios right now, and nobody will complain until later.

That will continue because it is what sells. So I recommend going indie or something.

@NEStalgia Hi there friend.
You know, it still baffles me that some individuals believe that "only one true" videogame company actualy matters and the
others don´t.
The same way some people say that this company
"only makes" this kind of games or that kind of games.
Surely you must like when some people say that Nintendo "only makes" kids games. I´m guessing not so much.
The reality is, ALL videogame companies make different and great games that a lot of different people enjoy, with different tastes.
ALL games are fun. 3D Platformers, Racing games(simulation and arcade), First Person Shooters, Action Adventure games, Puzzle games, Third Person Shooter games, Role Playing games, so on and so forth.
Even if someone does not like or enjoy a type of game, that does not mean it is a bad game, or that it is not a game.
Because just like the sentence "Nintendo only makes kids games" is false, so it is that certain companies only makes "movies with directional inputs".
And yes, I can imagine Nintendo laughing their butts off while hearing the Microsoft proposal.
It must have been hilarious, surely.
Cheers, stay safe out there and happy gaming to us all

@LiterallyDoNotCare I don't think it's accurate to say that's what all AAA games will become at all. I hate the moniker AAA, it refers only to the money spent and nothing else. It's not a useful label beyond boasting of a games budget as a marketing point.

But even among games of that budget, you're right in saying it wins awards. Indeed the awards seem almost designed to reward that particular format. But that doesn't mean it's profitable. There's been a lot of discussion at to if Sony actually loses money on those movie products. They sell ok, generally, but nothing like a multiplat hit. And volume sales numbers include discounted sales. Tlou2 did make records and come in as their top grossing game, but that was also special circumstances, and i was surprised in the past month or so, Jim Ryan even commented that sales-wise it wasn't the success fans make it out to be due to the sharp drop in sales after launch. Ok average it seems likely they're losing money on those games. Which is fine. That's analogous to what Microsoft is doing with gamepass to drive platform growth. Publishers without hardware and platforms to sell can't support games that lose money.

The movie game thing is mostly unique to Sony. They're the only one with the film division to lean on, and can support taking a loss in software to drive hardware to in turn receivereceive the real money: licensing.

Other publishers aren't really going that way. In fact they're more and more going the other direction after trying to copy that and losing. Rock Star.... Their money doesn't come from movie games, it comes from gtav online. They're practically an mmo company at this point that made one movie game. Ubisoft moved away from movie games over the years taking even their linear action adventure open world, and then taking that and making it a legit wrpg. They just launched a very good breath of the wild clone driven by puzzles, stats, and combat. And they released watch dogs 3 which stripped the concept of a protagonist entirely and relies purely on emergent gameplay and almost no story. Critics didn't embrace it but it honesty works out great and will have solid long tail sales. Farcry is never a movie, it's a big sandbox.

Ea and acti all gaas. Warner is moving from cinematic to more gaas.

Microsoft tried to go cinematic hardcore with Matrick having spielberg and Lucas in stage to tell us the future of film is interactive through games in 2013 before introducing remedy to show us quantum break - literally a movie glued to a game.... Except with awesome gameplay. It tanked and nobody handed ms awards. That only works for Sony. The game way Samsung can introduce a better version of a feature an iphone was endlessly praised by the media for a year earlier and the press ignores it.

Of Microsoft's studios, i can't think of a single movie game ever made by any of them. Deep rpgs, action games, arcadey games. Maybe ghostwrire Tokyo from Bethesda but that's about it.

I see the industry generally steering clear of that genre, actually.

@RaZieLDaNtE For now, yes Sony has more variety then that. For now. But most of that started under the old leadership, and it's becoming increasingly clear that the new management is systematically eliminating that in the future and focusing on operating Sony interactive as an extension of Sony Pictures. I don't say that as an xbox fan looking in at evil Sony. I say it as a PlayStation fan watching everything I've valued about PlayStation for 25 years visibly eroding from under the platform while they chase the mass market with movie games the way Nintendo chased the mass market with simplified waggle games during the Wii. It's depressing.... (Ps2, 3, 4, pro, psp, vita, psvr, ps5 owner, and a ps1 library but no ps1 hardware.... I've been around for a while )

@NEStalgia lol. You wrote all that and didn't defend your initial point. these movie games sony do, have better gameplay than most of those non "movie" games you say. Sony is making more sales than with those less "movie ish" games from ps3. Uncharted 4 and tlou 1 made a billion. Gow and hzd half a million and who knows what Ghost, tlou 2 and Spiderman did.

Avengers, f76 flopped, anthem etc... It doesn't always work. nintendo also gets away with ratings and sales because of nostalgia.

Look at cdpr, broken game and still 13m. Cdpr and rockstar make the exact movie games sony does, sorry.

Ubisoft make very average games. they should never get even nominations. Control did what quantum should've done. They were better back then, with those movie type of games.

@RaZieLDaNtE Apart from bayonetta, more more heroes, metroid prime 4, fire emblem and astral chain, nintendo only makes kids games. Those I mentioned didn't or won't sell as much as those kids games, sadly.

@LiterallyDoNotCare I wrote a sizable response, but, unfortunately the comments section won't let me post any chunk of it that makes enough sense without having to split it into a bunch of entries. Rather than spamming several entries here, or just starting a thread for it, if you wanted to continue the conversation hit me up on the forum side where we can post longer form discussions, and I'll post it there!

The TL;DR is I think you're conflating any game with a high production value with being of the interactive movie subgenre. A lot of the games you're referencing aren't a part of that subgenre that Sony specializes in that is really in question, and are largely examples of the opposite. The only thing they have in common is high production values. GTAV's narrative component is so short and narrow it's questionable as to if it's even meaningful in the game. It probably accounts for less than 20% of the average playthrough.

@NEStalgia Again. The reason I started the conversation was because you said sony games have simplistic gameplay which they don't and people want to believe they are just movies to feel they purchase "better" games.

Yes. Rockstar has the same or more cutscenes than sony games in some cases. Very similar style. Same goes for cdpr.

Again, I just commented because you said you think movie ish games are worse. Imagine games doing a game and a story both great and downplaying it.

" Say what you will about Nintendo, but at least their games aren't movies with directional inputs..... "

This is what you said. Downplay all you want, but animal crossing would never have that quality of voice acting, animation, graphics, next gen gameplay that a lot of triple A games on xbox or playstation have.

@LiterallyDoNotCare I think you're making a lot of your own arguments, assigning them to me, and then trying hard to debunk them. You're trying to argue as though I'm a waging a console war where I don't play one company's games and stereotype them.

I'm a customer of all 3 platforms, I buy many of the first party games of all 3 platforms, I have lots of experience with all those games and all those franchises. I'm not talking from the outside, I'm talking about experiencing them all for myself. Nor am i stating that any of those games are bad or unenjoyable in their niche, only that they are indeed a particular niche that don't best represent the medium entirely.

And I'm not sure how we're even talking about Animal Crossing at all? I have my own bones to pick with that game. Namely it took 2 steps forward and 6 steps back for its own series and genre, and were I to assign it a score, it would come in with a lower score than it's 3DS predecessor that was more advanced in a number of ways, gameplay-wise. It's as over-hyped as TLoU2 is for different reasons. But that series at large is anomalous and can't really be part of this particular topic.

Your last sentence summarizes the issue though. "Game X will never have the quality of voice acting, animation, graphics and 'next gen gameplay(?)'" of Games Y and Z" The idea that the "quality" of a game is pinned around voice acting and graphics above gameplay is part of the problem. It's bass ackwards. You did cover gameplay, but in a vague way. What is "next gen gameplay?" Skill upgrades, stat trees, character customization? We've had that in CRPGs since the 90s. Is it big open worlds? Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall did that on DOS. Zork did it pre-DOS on a command line. Stealth-action? Metal Gear did it on MSX and NES. Splinter Cell's been doing it since the 90's. Online play? Been doing that since Diablo and DOOM in the 90's. What exactly is "next gen gameplay"? How is it quantified? Is Spiderman Miles Morales "next gen gameplay? Feels a lot like inFamous, which felt a lot like Assassin's Creed, which borrowed a lot from GTA, all quite some time ago. Is it about physics and hit detection? Polished interface and behavior? Surely, then Cyberpunk isn't next-gen gameplay, right? And if you're going to talk RDR2 as the height of gaming, let's talk about that control scheme, dismal HDR implementation, incredibly stiff controls, mission parameters, and horrendous gunplay still inferior to numerous PC shooters.....of the 90's....let alone console shooters since. I don't dislike RDR2 at all, keep in mind, I like it a lot. But I can also call a spade a spade. Mission structure, gunplay, hitboxes, AI and cover are a time machine back to 2003. Farcry 2 had better gunplay, and that's quite a condemnation. Max Payne ran a dozen laps around it.

@NEStalgia
Those games aren't niche. Not every game can be fortnite or pubg. Call of duty sells around the 20m, which some of these single player games, including nintendo and sony, have reached. So idk what niche you are talking about. Not everyone will like the same game, so almost every game, 99% won't be played by a majority of gamers. That goes to xbox too (bleeding edge, crackdown 3 etc...). Demon Souls is a bit niche, and Nioh 2 and Persona are even more niche. That's niche. Not C2077 or Spider-man.

That's the issue with you. Tlou 2 does all that voice acting, animations, graphics and still did a phenomenal job at gameplay. I think it's a top 3 best third person shooter in terms of JUST gameplay. Just by being third person shows being more next-gen than animal crossing. Why do you think the mainline mario games are third person? Now lets go more deep. Those scrips, attention to detail for enemies getting shot, blasted, how they look for you under beds and cars. That screams next-gen. Not a top down press A to make an ai script turn on. You think making Mr.X followin throughout the police station isn't more complicated than using the same formula in pokemon? Let me give you another example, in dead space 2, that last unkillable enemy you encounter appears and reappears in hallways. Mr. X in the remake doesn't do that. He is always there unless you move to a total different area.

I hate horizon 2 and god of war 2 being cross gen. Those things I mentioned, won't be added on there because the ps4 won't handle it. People don't realise next-gen is more than upping a slider for better textures and graphics. I want flying on horizon 2. Climbing on those mammoths and shooting arrows while controlling. Something crazy. And if those 2 games are just technically ps4 games with higher textures, bad for sony.

I didn't play infamous 1 or 2 (wished I did), but how fast spider-man is moving, how many random encounters pop-up, while listening to daily bug and how the city being alive is something that screams next-gen to me.

You are saying by being the same genre, it's not next-gen, when there details, new combat mechanics that COULD not be done before. That's a very shallow way to look at it.

I agree lol. rdr2's gameplay could've been better.

@NEStalgia Hi and thanks for the reply.
Even though I am a fan of many different kind of videogames I do tend to like certain games more often.
And I personaly have really enjoyed the kind of games Sony Playstation has made, and Microsoft for that matter, for quite some time and even more in recent years.
Why? Because I love single player story driven games the most.
You think they are movie games and if you don´t like that, it´s fine. It is your oppinion.
But the same way I like Games like Bloodborne, Ni-Oh 2, Forza Motorsport, Super Mario Odissey and Doom I also love games like God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spiderman, Gears of War 5 and The Last of Us part 2.
Story driven games, with amazing Visuals and Art style and awesome Gameplay mechanics.
No gimmicks whatsoever.
For me, my oppinion, Sony, Microsoft and even Nintendo have both changed and evolved over the years.
Nintendo have decided to go on a different route than Sony and Microsoft ever since the N64 and even more with the Wii.
Nintendo likes to do things different and that´s okay.
The other two are more graphical powerhouses but also have little things that differentiate them from each other.
And again, that is okay to.
Variety is a good thing to have.
Cheers, stay safe and have a good one