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Hero of Legend
Member
Capcom with who?
One scenario I can actually see happening is that Nintendo buys Level-5 considering how tight they are, but also EG's rumor from last year where apparently Iwata saw Akihiro Hino as a potential successor.
That's about as big as Nintendo would go for. Bandai Namco would be WAY too big. Then again, they seemingly had their eye on Bandai and apparently even Namco on their own prior and those two were already pretty big.
If anyone needs to expand by acquiring a studio, it'd probably be Nintendo.
Picking up the Monster Hunter team and licensing the IP.
But in this day and age, you don't usually have any acquires. Studios just work under hire for a larger group be that Nintendo, SE, Sony, or whatever.
Hero of Legend
Member
I highly agree it'd make sense, if Nintendo could afford it and if they'd even be allowed to.
I remember Bandai specifically cited their success on Sony hardware as one major reason that they opposed the buyout. But that was back in 2003.
If you look at the most recent acquisitions in Japan, it's largely been cash rich mobile game and/or media companies (Sega, Gung-Ho, Nepro, Kadokawa) who want to expand into dedicated devices (via Atlus, Grasshopper, Tri-Ace, or From Software).
Were I looking for someone to buy Capcom, I would guess someone along the lines of CyGames. Mind, I don't necessarily mean CyGames itself, since they've been choosing to hire up a ton of staff directly and then partner with independent studios like Platinum.
If I had to pick someone, Mixi/XFLAG has 80 gazillion Monster Strike dollars and nothing to spend it on, has generally failed to open successful new business lines, and has a variety of former Capcom staff working for them.
Hero of Legend
Member
Just for the hell of it, who do you think Nintendo would/should pick up if it ever happened?
I don't think they'll have any difficulty hiring developers directly or partnering with independent dedicated device studios (and sometimes even publishers) to make games targeting their core audience, so I would suggest they make acquisitions to supplement their new business lines.
They lack internal talent in both multimedia creation and mobile gaming, so any investment there is likely to get more bang for their buck than buying Koei Tecmo would since they can just hire Koei Tecmo anyway.
I mean even if you look at Vivendi (Blizzard/Sierra), when they bought additional companies, they bought Activision because of their success in consoles (Vivendi was primarily successful on PC), and then King, who was hugely successful in mobile. They also bought the MLG to augment their eSports ambitions.
Hero of Legend
Member
To me it makes more sense for Nintendo to buy a dev (or even a publisher like Koei Tecmo or Bandai Namco) so that they can double or even triple their 1st-party line-up by default, rather than worry about a game-by-game partnership.
Also Bandai owns Sunrise no? That can help their movie/TV business.
Bandai Namco is a $6.2 billion company and generally you have to pay significantly above that to actually acquire a company since there's an expected value of the company that might be quite a bit higher than whatever it's trading at.
Nintendo only has $8 billion in cash, so that would probably take just about all of it and put them in a relatively precarious situation, since Nintendo as a company is in many ways defined by its cash pile given their ho-hum existing cash flow.
There would also be the trick of convincing Bandai Namco's shareholders that this is actually a logical and attractive takeover that benefits Bandai Namco as a company, or paying them so much money that they're willing to take the deal anyway (which is where the large premium on the stock price comes in).
Honestly The Bandai part is the part that would help Nintendo more with future branding/merchandising deals. Getting Namco would just be a bonus.
This is all pie in the sky though as I don't think Nintendo could force a buyout and I don't think Bamco would want to merge.
This is all pie in the sky though as I don't think Nintendo could force a buyout and I don't think Bamco would want to merge.
Hero of Legend
Member
Yeah as I said above Nintendo may not even be able to afford them, didn't realize it was that close at that.
Level-5 might be cheap enough and provide the quantity, then again, like 90% of their line-up (sans mobile) is on Nintendo hardware (exclusive at that) so it's not the most necessary.
Not sure what Koei Tecmo's $ value is.
Thing is, who would've ever thought Nintendo would buy Monolith? The only game they put out with Nintendo at the time was Baten Kaitos Origins. They had Disaster and secretly Xenoblade underway, but still, that was really out of nowhere.
I'm sure Bandai Namco would merge if they could sell Nintendo merchandizing and games on every possible channel in existence, but I don't think that's the question at hand.
The issue with Level-5 is that they're a private company, so only what Hino wants to happen will happen.
Koei-Tecmo is only $1.9 billion yen, but I'm not sure there's a real value gain for Nintendo there given their line-up is far from astounding.
AcademicSaucer
Member
Nintendo got Monolith Soft for their stock in Namco right ?
Does Nintendo has any kind of debt like Sony?
Not as far as I can tell, but it's possible. They're definitely well in the positive though cash wise, which isn't the case for a lot of publishers.
Hero of Legend
Member
Do they EVER have debt?
Look at the last major developer for sale, Atlus. Could Nintendo have bought them? Sure, at a good price too. Why bother though when they get a giant chunk of Atlus's development anyways?
Nintendo's likely moves in the near future are going to be in media and mobile and likely small ones at that.
Why would any console manufacturer want to purchase Koei Tecmo?
None of their IPs are worth a damn anymore, and they know it, there's a good reason they're making so many licensed games lately.
Nintendo / Sony whoever is better off just hiring them, which they have been and it seems like they'be been doing ok.
I could see some large Chinese company interested, but nobody from Japan.
Though a timeline where Nintendo publishes a Berserk game would be interesting, Guts amiibo.
None of their IPs are worth a damn anymore, and they know it, there's a good reason they're making so many licensed games lately.
Nintendo / Sony whoever is better off just hiring them, which they have been and it seems like they'be been doing ok.
I could see some large Chinese company interested, but nobody from Japan.
Though a timeline where Nintendo publishes a Berserk game would be interesting, Guts amiibo.
I think the best way to explain why I feel a Koei-Tecmo purchase would be bad is this.
To buy Koei-Tecmo, Nintendo would probably need to do at least a 25-30% premium on the stock, so they're spending $2.5 billion.
In return for $2.5 billion, Nintendo gets:
- Exclusive Musou games.
- Gust titles like Atelier and Night of Azure.
- A couple of browser games on Yahoo Japan.
- Dead or Alive and Nioh from Team Ninja.
Like... do people actually feel that's a good investment? I'm sure they could just pay Koei Tecmo $50-$100 million a year and get about that much content anyway.
To buy Koei-Tecmo, Nintendo would probably need to do at least a 25-30% premium on the stock, so they're spending $2.5 billion.
In return for $2.5 billion, Nintendo gets:
- Exclusive Musou games.
- Gust titles like Atelier and Night of Azure.
- A couple of browser games on Yahoo Japan.
- Dead or Alive and Nioh from Team Ninja.
Like... do people actually feel that's a good investment? I'm sure they could just pay Koei Tecmo $50-$100 million a year and get about that much content anyway.
DriftingSpirit
Member
I don't think any of those acquisitions make much sense. The console business is paltry at best in Japan. What good would really come from the purchases? Just keep doing third party deals. It is much cheaper and you, more or less, get the same thing.
Hero of Legend
Member
Capcom would be much more expensive no?
They're a bit under $1.5 billion and their income is pathetic so you might not have to pay much of a premium, but they're also a go-nowhere company which is why no one is attempting to buy them.
3-5 years from now they might be under $1 billion at which point I could see someone like Mixi trying to pick them up in a play to use their cash for something.
Nintendo in particular already has Monster Hunter on their platform and there's basically no value in anything else for them, unless they're speculatively purchasing their as of yet unsuccessful mobile development arm.
Capcom has much better IP though. I still don't think buying them makes sense. They already get the best fit franchise in MH. Getting Megaman and Street Fighter and a depressed Resident Evil isn't going to make up for the billions they'd need to spend.
Namco Bandai does make sense if they went big into media/mobile interests because they have even more highly desirable IP, the sort of stuff they'd need if they truly wanted to be the Disney of Japan.
Hero of Legend
Member
Ōkami;215996697 said:
Retro was no? Or did they start out as 2nd-party?
The only other thing I can think of, (besides a Nintendo developed Megaman which would do good but not spectacular numbers) is a theoretical Nintendo vs. Capcom fighting game. But even then the best avenue to get a game like that would be a deal and not by buying the company. Hell its not like Capcom would even be the ones developing it, it would be Dimps or Eighting or what have you.
As noted above, I think the only thing Nintendo would be interested in doing with Capcom would be to buy the talent for the MonHun titles and license the IP from Capcom (or outright buy it, but that's extremely rare).
... Kinda like what they just did with Momotaro Densetsu.
Hero of Legend
Member
This is likely the best thing if they can make it happen; try to acquire everything Hudson, including the name and just rebrand ND Cube as Hudson, along with buying the IPs including Bomberman and Bloody Roar.
ND Cube can take care of most of the IPs but can also work with 8ing on Bloody Roar who've always worked on the series.
Nintendo co founded, them they were never fully independent.
I feel like Nintendo should have been buying up during the DS/Wii days when studios (in JP and the west) were struggling a lot with HD development. Would've helped bolster their first party content right now when they really need anything they can get. Oh well, Nintendo is an expert at missed opportunities.
Right now probably isn't the right time to be buying up companies dedicated to console games. If the NX isn't a flop they they'll end up on it or wouldn't belong on it anyway. All that extra cash should be used to diversify their non-handheld/console gaming portfolio which their desperately behind on.
Right now probably isn't the right time to be buying up companies dedicated to console games. If the NX isn't a flop they they'll end up on it or wouldn't belong on it anyway. All that extra cash should be used to diversify their non-handheld/console gaming portfolio which their desperately behind on.
I think it's pretty obvious by now that some posters here are just port-begging. Often we've been seeing topics such as "X should've been on 3DS" and now it's "Nintendo should be buying X company (so that their games will be exclusive to Nintendo platforms)".
Eh, there's no need to buy a company to release their amiibos. Plus, there are already many DOA and Atelier figure/figurines out there if you just want to collect them. Rorona's figure released by Megahouse a few years ago is really nice.
http://www.megahobby.jp/products/item/838/
Nirolak has already touched upon it, but I would expect a mobile company to get them.
With Level-5 the real benefit would be on the mobile side of things.
I guess it would depend on if they felt they could find more success with the resources they gain in the deal than Capcom currently is.
It was Iguana not Acclaim and no, Nintendo just got key people out and funded a new studio, plenty of other people left due to that and they became Retro.
Iguana got rebranded as Acclaim Austin, they were the studio that made Turok 3 and Evolution. Shut down in 2004
Ōkami;215997435 said:
Ahh cool. Didn't know this! Learned for the future!
Much thanks.
I believe we said this exact thing before lol. Level-5 after Layton will be able to handle their IP better.
After Inazuma Eleven. After Fantasy Life. After LBX.
We just need to accept the fact that it is not Level-5 style here.
And for Nintendo to buy Level-5....i can't see it. Hino love the freedom he had with his private company so i had hard times seeing this happen.O_O
On the other hand, i would think Nintendo would be better go and buy some mobile company likey Cygames. As Nintendo would need more power to dive into mobile market rather than looking for Capcom who is faltering everywhere, Koei which is a niche company and of course not Bamco which is damn expensive.O_O
EDIT: Actually talking about mobile company, what is the biggest mobile game company nowadays which is not part of the big traditional gaming company like S-E, Bamco, Nintendo? I would say, Nintendo should focus on getting some of the developer there first.
they need to increase their share in the alice in zombieland movies before the inevitable reboot
plus, sony would get such hit ips like dying horror franchise #1, dying horror franchise #9, hugely popular ip limited to a product type they're not interested in, bait for a lawyer tv show, failed fighting game #1, chronically unsuccessful platformer
but hey, maybe mega man battle network on mobile would make a billion dollars
or not
You may joke but I bet Capcom could make a boatload off of a well targeted mobile BN game. The franchise could do quite well there, but it is probably too late for that.
2D Action-Platformer MegaMan made by former-EAD or Retro would probably light GAF on fire, but I have no idea how that would do in the real world. It could be what MNo.9 failed to be.
Hero of Legend
Member
Right. Disgaea 5 really didn't do so well and that's their big main series.
They said they were evaluating NX support, which really seems almost necessary since as you said, Sony is likely not going to release another handheld so what are they left with? Did Disgaea PC do anything?
Same goes for other Sony handheld folks like Gust, Compile Heart, Falcom, etc.
I loved Battle Network, but that series along with MMZ killed the franchise as a whole.
Even then they've been losing big name talent to companies like Idea Factory IIRC and D5 bombed hard.
Even then they've been losing big name talent to companies like Idea Factory IIRC and D5 bombed hard.