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[jufonuk]

I don't know why you put GameCube there, because it was a highly competitive machine in performance terms when it was released. The CPU was far faster than the PS2 and at least comparable to the original Xbox most of the time (the Xbox was higher clocked, but had generally lower IPC, although better SIMD performance) - the GameCube GPU used EDRAM for the frame buffer and was very fast, and although it lacked fully programmable shaders it had a fancy texture pipeline that let you combine things in ways that even the NV2A in the Xbox couldn't.

Really, the GC was the last time Nintendo tried for performance - and it sold terribly. The Wii used exactly the same basic technology except upclocked 50% and with a new control scheme, was released 5 years after the GC (at which point the basic architecture was really showing it's age) and sold extremely well, which is probably why Nintendo concluded that performance really wasn't that important.

Yeah I meant to imply all that

 

[Elysion]

If I was in charge of Nintendo I’d buy the remaining big Japanese publishers: Capcom, Square, Sega. All of them together would cost a fraction of what MS paid for Activision, and it would give Nintendo a plethora of iconic franchises that could be exclusive to their hardware: Sonic, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, Yakuza, Persona – the list goes on and on.

Together with their own franchises, Nintendo would arguably command the biggest roster of popular IPs in the whole industry, thus ensuring that they‘ll always remain competitive in terms of content, even if all remaining western publishers get bought by other companies. It would also mean no future Nintendo system would ever suffer from software droughts again.

It sounds totally crazy of course, but so did anyone buying Activision, yet here we are.

 

[synce]

"Hey we're pretty much destroying everyone and making nothing but fat profits for 5 years with minimal investment. We should change something, right?"

"Get out."

Something like that prolly.

 

[GigaBowser]

If I was in charge of Nintendo I’d buy the remaining big Japanese publishers: Capcom, Square, Sega. All of them together would cost a fraction of what MS paid for Activision, and it would give Nintendo a plethora of iconic franchises that could be exclusive to their hardware: Sonic, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, Yakuza, Persona – the list goes on and on.

Together with their own franchises, Nintendo would arguably command the biggest roster of popular IPs in the whole industry, thus ensuring that they‘ll always remain competitive in terms of content, even if all remaining western publishers get bought by other companies. It would also mean no future Nintendo system would ever suffer from software droughts again.

It sounds totally crazy of course, but so did anyone buying Activision, yet here we are.

God help us all if these franchises get farmed out to any of these companies.

People don't understand that the quality is going to drop badly. I really hope Japan is left alone.

 

[Coolwhhip]

"Hey we're pretty much destroying everyone and making nothing but fat profits for 5 years with minimal investment. We should change something, right?"

"Get out."

Something like that prolly.

"But I have an idea for a gimmick for the next console that could destroy our current success in a matter of months."

"Okay come back in."

 

[Zannegan]

Here's hoping they're spending a lot of time discussing how to make the next gen joycon comfier and more reliable with better tracking.

If I was in charge of Nintendo I’d buy the remaining big Japanese publishers: Capcom, Square, Sega. All of them together would cost a fraction of what MS paid for Activision, and it would give Nintendo a plethora of iconic franchises that could be exclusive to their hardware: Sonic, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, Yakuza, Persona – the list goes on and on.

Together with their own franchises, Nintendo would arguably command the biggest roster of popular IPs in the whole industry, thus ensuring that they‘ll always remain competitive in terms of content, even if all remaining western publishers get bought by other companies. It would also mean no future Nintendo system would ever suffer from software droughts again.

It sounds totally crazy of course, but so did anyone buying Activision, yet here we are.

They should make tech acquisitions and bolster their development output rathey than trying to expand their IP. They already have so many properties that are sitting neglected that--outside of securing a few Nintendo associated IP defensively (like Sonic or Bayonetta) or building up their retro library for a virtual console service--I don't see what they gain from picking up or mutually investing with another Japanese publisher.

Plus, Nintendo doesn't have bottomless wells of cash like Microsoft. They certainly aren't poor, but they couldn't just sweep up all of them at the price it would cost to convince them to sell (and if they did, they'd probably become targets for acquisition themselves or something... not that I know what I'm talking about here). Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Drell]

The only real big third party franchise they "have" at the moment is Monster Hunter. So I guess the day Sony or MS buy them, they may be annoyed a bit. But maybe, seeing MS and Sony reinforcing their positions, they may have gained some interrest in acquiring them?

 

[Bernardougf]

While they don’t make a lot of money from 3rd party stuff outside of Minecraft do you think they are having sit downs and team meetings about all these acquisitions? The video game industry in general is consolidating and they ARE part of the larger gaming industry. They still get stuff tony hawk, Spyro, crash, elder scrolls, doom, etc. etc.

If more companies, including Sony start buying more stuff do you think that puts more pressure on them? For example. Nintendo lives off its evergreen titles, but theres gonna come a time where nintendo switch sales are gonna slow down, and the Wii-U library padded a lot of those long release gaps. What happens when Mario Kart, Animal Crossing and those games sales inevitably slow down? Do they go back to heavily relying on indies? What if Spartacus and Gamepass start getting so heavy into it that they start hoarding most of them?

I think its interesting how people don’t really consider Nintendos position in all this but surely they will eventually be more effected than people think.

They are thinking .... "hummmm what game can we do a quick remaster and sell gazillions to our millions of fans that will buy anything we trow at them for full price"

In fact Nintendo is the ultimate proof that this talk of SONY exiting the console market is utterly nonsense

 

[Elysion]

They should make tech acquisitions and bolster their development output rathey than trying to expand their IP. They already have so many properties that are sitting neglected that--outside of securing a few Nintendo associated IP defensively (like Sonic or Bayonetta) or building up their retro library for a virtual console service--I don't see what they gain from picking up or mutually investing with another Japanese publisher.

Plus, Nintendo doesn't have bottomless wells of cash like Microsoft. They certainly aren't poor, but they couldn't just sweep up all of them at the price it would cost to convince them to sell (and if they did, they'd probably become targets for acquisition themselves or something... not that I know what I'm talking about here). Correct me if I'm wrong.

Buying other publishers and developers would greatly expand their output, which is something they‘re going to need in the future. Imagine how the Switch library would look like if it wasn’t for all those Wii U ports. That‘s a luxury Nintendo won‘t have for the Switch successor; they‘ll have to rely entirely on new games. Buying a publisher like Capcom would bolster Nintendo’s library very quickly.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

 

[GigaBowser]

Buying other publishers and developers would greatly expand their output, which is something they‘re going to need in the future. Imagine how the Switch library would look like if it wasn’t for all those Wii U ports. That‘s a luxury Nintendo won‘t have for the Switch successor; they‘ll have to rely entirely on new games. Buying a publisher like Capcom would bolster Nintendo’s library very quickly.

ehhhh it might expand the console makers output a bit, until all the staff from Capcom leaves, and then Nintendo would have to use their own manpower, but it would certainly destroy Capcom.

I pray to Jebus nobody ever touches Capcom because nobody who gets bought up will ever be the same and I love me some Capcom.

 

[Banjo64]

As long as Nintendo put out hardware that makes them a profit on each unit, continues to produce Smash, MK, Zelda, Pokémon, Mario and Animal Crossing and getting income from their online service - they will be fine. They operate on a different level.

 

[Kiddo Cabbusses]

ehhhh it might expand the console makers output a bit, until all the staff from Capcom leaves, and then Nintendo would have to use their own manpower, but it would certainly destroy Capcom.

I pray to Jebus nobody ever touches Capcom because nobody who gets bought up will ever be the same and I love me some Capcom.

As a frame of reference, Nintendo wasn't able to keep a lot of the OG Metroid Prime staff around, which may in retrospect be a huge cause of Prime 4's development woes. This was for Retro Studios, a company that technically is an example of one Nintendo bought out.

So historical precedence states that it is not certain that Nintendo will be able to maintain the manpower gained from a company buyout. Though it looks like they did better with Next Level Games so far.

Companies like Capcom? Ironically, their good IP inflates their price too much - Nintendo has no need for their IP when they themselves have more IP than they know what to do with. This is why Nintendo's previous buyouts have all been companies that before then were mostly devs-for-hire.

 

[Vaelka]

Do the Japanese even care as much as American companies do about endless growth?
It always seem'd more to me like more of a corporate America sort of thing to the extreme level it is at least, with companies gobbling up so much and aiming for endless expansions and improved profits.

It just seems to me like there's not as much of a culture surrounding that and they're a bit more content with just simply being successful.
And yes I know Sony is Japanese but the gaming side is very US-centric and has its office in CA.
It just doesn't seem as ultra Capitalist to me to such an extreme not saying they're not greedy but not in the sense that they think that they need to own the world and have ALL the money.

 

[Calling 911 Melts Beams]

They should buy ebay and get a $$$ cut of every ps5 sale

 

[GigaBowser]

As a frame of reference, Nintendo wasn't able to keep a lot of the OG Metroid Prime staff around, which may in retrospect be a huge cause of Prime 4's development woes. This was for Retro Studios, a company that technically is an example of one Nintendo bought out.

So historical precedence states that it is not certain that Nintendo will be able to maintain the manpower gained from a company buyout. Though it looks like they did better with Next Level Games so far.

Companies like Capcom? Ironically, their good IP inflates their price too much - Nintendo has no need for their IP when they themselves have more IP than they know what to do with. This is why Nintendo's previous buyouts have all been companies that before then were mostly devs-for-hire.

This is the thing with these buyouts from all companies, is that most of the talent leaves and goes to other companies or forms new studios. So you are not really buying any new talent, you are just buying IP.

Really hope Nintendo and Sony lay their paws off Capcom because it would destroy Capcom.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Nintendo? They’ll just keep doing their stuffs, completely oblivious to the outside world.

 

[Fbh]

"Ok guys, hear me out...... Mario kart.............................9"

 

[BabyfaceRe]

The conversation is probably something like "Pokemon Arceus Legends is sitting at 84 on Metacrtic, these chumps will buy anything with Pokemon on it. Why invest billions when we can half-ass the most popular IP on the planet and get praised for it?".

 

[GymWolf]

Probably laughing their way to the bank: look at these cunts spending billions while we make billions with something like pokemon arceus

 

[Happosai]

BOTW2 and other 1st party titles for 2022/23. I don't think the conversation is "let's mod the Switch." They're going to push Switch until 2023/24 before hinting a new console.

 

[Azelover]

Nintendo? They’ll just keep doing their stuffs, completely oblivious to the outside world.

They have their own world.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Continuing to do their own thing like they always have. I really wish Nintendo would approach beefier specs that keep up with other current/next-gen systems. But at the same time, I respect them for doing whatever they want without worrying (or at least showing it) about what the others are doing.

 

[Termite]

The acquisitions stuff won't bother Nintendo, it's borderline irrelevant to them. They're happier with smaller indie games filling out their release schedule anyway, to keep focus on the first party games. They also know that their customers buy their consoles for the first party games, so losing some third party games won't affect sales in any meaningful way.

What will bother Nintendo is whether subscription services will devalue the price of games - this is something they're always concerned about over there. If it becomes a trend that families are using Xbox game pass / Sony's spartacus for all their gaming needs - INCLUDING games for their kids, then that IS something that could affect Nintendo, as their software is very expensive and never goes on sale.

Secondly, your point about not having Wii U games to rely on any more should concern them. Switch's success was driven in huge part by Wii U ports. I mean, its killer app Breath of the Wild was a Wii U port (that had it's Wii U release delayed so that this wouldn't be so apparent, but it was clearly a Wii U game from the ground up). Mario Kart 8, the highest selling Switch game was a Wii U port. Any time there has been a month or two without a first party game they drop a port of a good Wii U game and keep interest in the system ticking over. Because the Wii U had no users (other than me lol) these games were "new" to the Switch community and treated as such. Switch games will not be "new" to the players on Switch 2. They can't go to that well again.

Take out those ports and their first party output may not have been enough to create the kind of success Switch has been. Switch 2 will be very interesting without that well of titles to go to.

 

[fart town usa]

Meanwhile at Nintendo HQ....

"Hey, did you hear that MS bought Activision?" "Oh yea? I read that Sony just bought Bungie..."

"Oh and, what's this???? SOMEONE IS UPLOADING VIDEOGAME MUSIC TO YOUTUBE AND NOT MAKING ANY MONEY OFF OF IT!!!!"

 

[Woopah]

The acquisitions stuff won't bother Nintendo, it's borderline irrelevant to them. They're happier with smaller indie games filling out their release schedule anyway, to keep focus on the first party games. They also know that their customers buy their consoles for the first party games, so losing some third party games won't affect sales in any meaningful way.

What will bother Nintendo is whether subscription services will devalue the price of games - this is something they're always concerned about over there. If it becomes a trend that families are using Xbox game pass / Sony's spartacus for all their gaming needs - INCLUDING games for their kids, then that IS something that could affect Nintendo, as their software is very expensive and never goes on sale.

Secondly, your point about not having Wii U games to rely on any more should concern them. Switch's success was driven in huge part by Wii U ports. I mean, its killer app Breath of the Wild was a Wii U port (that had it's Wii U release delayed so that this wouldn't be so apparent, but it was clearly a Wii U game from the ground up). Mario Kart 8, the highest selling Switch game was a Wii U port. Any time there has been a month or two without a first party game they drop a port of a good Wii U game and keep interest in the system ticking over. Because the Wii U had no users (other than me lol) these games were "new" to the Switch community and treated as such. Switch games will not be "new" to the players on Switch 2. They can't go to that well again.

Take out those ports and their first party output may not have been enough to create the kind of success Switch has been. Switch 2 will be very interesting without that well of titles to go to.

I don't think the lack of Wii U ports is a big a deal as its made out to be. They were a significant part of the line up in 2017/2018 but not since then. And 2017/2018 was also a period when ma y of Nintnendo's teams were working on or just finishing 3DS projects, something which is no longer the case.

Between their investment in EPD, lack of a pandemic impact and stronger third party support out the gate, I think Switch 2 will be fine

 

[anothertech]

"Apple has offered xbillion$ to buy us out. But Google is countering that offer. Microsoft keeps hinting at a higher number, but we want to see what Sony offers first..."

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

The talks:

 

[Dr Bass]

If I was in charge of Nintendo I’d buy the remaining big Japanese publishers: Capcom, Square, Sega. All of them together would cost a fraction of what MS paid for Activision, and it would give Nintendo a plethora of iconic franchises that could be exclusive to their hardware: Sonic, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, Yakuza, Persona – the list goes on and on.

Together with their own franchises, Nintendo would arguably command the biggest roster of popular IPs in the whole industry, thus ensuring that they‘ll always remain competitive in terms of content, even if all remaining western publishers get bought by other companies. It would also mean no future Nintendo system would ever suffer from software droughts again.

It sounds totally crazy of course, but so did anyone buying Activision, yet here we are.

Nintendo can't even properly support their own franchises. I don't think they would do well trying to manage all the other franchises you're mentioning here, not to mention the added cost of owning all of those development studios now. Those developers make money by selling on every platform. Limiting all that stuff to Switch? Doesn't make sense IMO.

 

[OmegaSpirit32X]

If I was in charge of Nintendo I’d buy the remaining big Japanese publishers: Capcom, Square, Sega. All of them together would cost a fraction of what MS paid for Activision, and it would give Nintendo a plethora of iconic franchises that could be exclusive to their hardware: Sonic, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, Yakuza, Persona – the list goes on and on.

Together with their own franchises, Nintendo would arguably command the biggest roster of popular IPs in the whole industry, thus ensuring that they‘ll always remain competitive in terms of content, even if all remaining western publishers get bought by other companies. It would also mean no future Nintendo system would ever suffer from software droughts again.

It sounds totally crazy of course, but so did anyone buying Activision, yet here we are.

Ah yes, a monopoly. No thanks.

 

[OmegaSpirit32X]

The only real big third party franchise they "have" at the moment is Monster Hunter. So I guess the day Sony or MS buy them, they may be annoyed a bit. But maybe, seeing MS and Sony reinforcing their positions, they may have gained some interrest in acquiring them?

Monster Hunter is developed and owned by Capcom.

 

[sinnergy]

100 million sold: they go : huahuahuahua

 

[Mozza]

Nintendo will be so glad they got out of the core market arms race, even though minorities on internet forums still complain as if Nintendo are still part of it.

 

[remember_spinal]

Nintendo will be so glad they got out of the core market arms race, even though minorities on internet forums still complain as if Nintendo are still part of it.

They are, despite what people think about them mostly making money on their own titles. They’ve already started adapting to the things the other consoles are doing, like subscription gaming, cloud saves, digital game purchases, timed exclusives etc etc

If the other two are moving further away from hardware nintendo isnt gonna be the only game company still making hardware longer after, they will eventually have to adapt to cloud/streaming/subscription gaming also. The brains at nintendo aren’t as naive as their fans thank god

 

[Mozza]

They are, despite what people think about them mostly making money on their own titles. They’ve already started adapting to the things the other consoles are doing, like subscription gaming, cloud saves, digital game purchases, timed exclusives etc etc

If the other two are moving further away from hardware nintendo isnt gonna be the only game company still making hardware longer after, they will eventually have to adapt to cloud/streaming/subscription gaming also. The brains at nintendo aren’t as naive as their fans thank god

There still has to be hardware of some description, even if the consoles go digital only and subscription.

 

[CGiRanger]

100 million sold: they go : huahuahuahua

 

[Daymos]

I buy Nintendo games to keep for the rest of my life, I buy MS and Sony games to play for 1 generation and throw them away. It's just the difference between them, some companies want their games to be disposable. (I don't mean for this to be bold but it's not letting me undo it.. sorry)

 

[Gloomnivore]

They’ve been saying same about F-Zero for two decades.

 

[Drell]

Monster Hunter is developed and owned by Capcom.

I forgot to mention, but I meant that I was talking about buying Capcom.

 

[Deerock71]

 

[Kerotan]

I don't know why you put GameCube there, because it was a highly competitive machine in performance terms when it was released. The CPU was far faster than the PS2 and at least comparable to the original Xbox most of the time (the Xbox was higher clocked, but had generally lower IPC, although better SIMD performance) - the GameCube GPU used EDRAM for the frame buffer and was very fast, and although it lacked fully programmable shaders it had a fancy texture pipeline that let you combine things in ways that even the NV2A in the Xbox couldn't.

Really, the GC was the last time Nintendo tried for performance - and it sold terribly. The Wii used exactly the same basic technology except upclocked 50% and with a new control scheme, was released 5 years after the GC (at which point the basic architecture was really showing it's age) and sold extremely well, which is probably why Nintendo concluded that performance really wasn't that important.

Pretty much this. Nintendo lost the high end cutting edge console battle to sony and Microsoft. They don't even try to compete anymore.

 

[OldBoyGamer]

Buying other publishers and developers would greatly expand their output, which is something they‘re going to need in the future. Imagine how the Switch library would look like if it wasn’t for all those Wii U ports. That‘s a luxury Nintendo won‘t have for the Switch successor; they‘ll have to rely entirely on new games. Buying a publisher like Capcom would bolster Nintendo’s library very quickly.

Actually that’sa very good point.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

Nintendo worst case scenario just puts their games on mobile. Plus what do you expect Nintendo to do buy Sega?

They can sell Mario and Pokemon till the end of civilization.

 

[OldBoyGamer]

If I was in charge of Nintendo I’d buy the remaining big Japanese publishers: Capcom, Square, Sega. All of them together would cost a fraction of what MS paid for Activision, and it would give Nintendo a plethora of iconic franchises that could be exclusive to their hardware: Sonic, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, Yakuza, Persona – the list goes on and on.

Together with their own franchises, Nintendo would arguably command the biggest roster of popular IPs in the whole industry, thus ensuring that they‘ll always remain competitive in terms of content, even if all remaining western publishers get bought by other companies. It would also mean no future Nintendo system would ever suffer from software droughts again.

It sounds totally crazy of course, but so did anyone buying Activision, yet here we are.

I don’t see this working from a Nintendo POV for the reasons others have said. But it is something that perplexes me in terms of the MS/ActiBlizz deal.

MS could have spent probably the same money buying those companies you mention and have more manye franchises than this deal that they could grow over the next 19/15 years.

So it looks like they made a decision to spend that kind of money on a handful of IP’s that currently being in a LOT of revenue each year. But surely that’s going to be diminishing returns at some point? I can’t see the growth of those ActiBlizz titles matching the £68B cost. Wouldn’t it have been better to buy more IP’s?

 

[Y0ssarian]

They are talking about whether or not they each caught Arceus

 

[Elysion]

So it looks like they made a decision to spend that kind of money on a handful of IP’s that currently being in a LOT of revenue each year. But surely that’s going to be diminishing returns at some point? I can’t see the growth of those ActiBlizz titles matching the £68B cost. Wouldn’t it have been better to buy more IP’s?

Yeah, I‘m not sure if MS will ever earn back those $68B. That‘s much, much more than their gaming division has ever made in its entire existence. Heck, I‘m pretty sure that‘s more than Nintendo or Sony managed to accumulate over the course of the last twenty years, lol. Maybe MS thinks CoD on Gamepass will increase their subscriptions to such an extent that it will pay for itself?

 

[Zeroing]

Nintendo is not reactive! It’s not how they operate!
MS is the reactive one! All this acquisitions and push for cloud and services are because of what MS though Google and Amazon would do.

Anyway Nintendo might be slow but they aren’t disruptive they slowly evolve! They are reliable!