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Microsoft Publishes 1999 Letter From Failed Attempt To Buy Nintendo
- Thread starter stormfire
- Start date
I'd rather have had this than Wii-WiiU-Switch-Nintendo. A merged GC-Xbox-Experience sure would've been interesting. In that gen every console had something great to offer though. And a MS-Nintendo-coop would be unimaginable anyways, especially back then Nintendo was too crazy for that (internet is a fad)
Nice of them to release something like this. MS and Xbox have indeed come a long way. also it's great to see Xbox and Nintendo doing their own thing and thriving.
PS - I hope Phil is still serious about acquiring a Japanse developer though cos Xbox needs their exclusive JRPG dev.
PS - I hope Phil is still serious about acquiring a Japanse developer though cos Xbox needs their exclusive JRPG dev.
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Everyone acting like this would've been a good thing confuses me. Yeah, Nintendo would've had better online services, but also probably wouldn't have been able to make any of the interesting hardware they've made, and there would be no Switch. Just another black TV box that has Mario on it. And Mario would probably be an edgelord now.
There'd be no more Nintendo, just Microsoft with Nintendo IP.
Blech. The industry is better with more competitors, not fewer.
There'd be no more Nintendo, just Microsoft with Nintendo IP.
Blech. The industry is better with more competitors, not fewer.
I mean, the whole thing about not wanting to give Mario a 'stache because it made him look like Hitler* should have given it away as being fake š
*Everyone knows Mario's 'stache makes him look like Stalin
At the very least as consumers, I'm happy Nintendo rejected both Sony & Microsoft. All 3 players are healthier than ever to all of our benefit.
Given how bad MS ran its alot of its gaming studios for so long ,i doubt Nintendo wouldve lasted the 2000s.
Its just disguised console warring, nothing more
You know, I'm guessing that Microsoft weren't hardcore gamers at the time and didn't know much about Sega or what Sega had to offer.
I don't know their history on this site. But otherwise with knowing the context a perma-ban seems a bit harsh imo.
That is surprising. My guess is that when they were in the process of making deals Sega was still very valuable off the launch of the DC and by the time the DC was discontinued maybe MS wasn't looking to acquire anymore.
It was an extremely racist joke utilizing an extremely harmful stereotype from an obviously fake interview (if you think about it for 5 seconds it's obvious he would never say that or anything else in that fake interview). The stereotype that extremely racist joke utilizes has caused generations of Asian men to be insecure about their masculinity. It's kind of embarrassing that I've seen shit like that on Era multiple times even in 2021 and I'm sick of it.
It's not something to be taken lightly. I'm not sure if a permaban was necessary, it would depend on his history, but he does need a nice, long timeout IMO.
Pretty much, Nintendo is one of the most creative developers in the world (I'd argue they're number 1). To take away their autonomy and give it to Microsoft, in the Steve Balmer era no less, would be a massive shame.
Pretty sure I recall reading about that, yes. It would've made a lot more sense, I agree. I'm not really surprised Sega would decline, though. They were hurting for money, of course, but they had good reason to believe they'd be much more profitable without the hardware business.
At one point, after the Dreamcast was discontinued, it was rumored that they were pushing for backwards compatibility between the Dreamcast and Xbox.
Looking back on this 20 years later, I wouldn't have minded Microsoft buying Sega.
I think the most interesting hypothetical is if the 2006-2008 success of the Wii/Wii Sports is attributed to Microsoft, do they have their 2010-2013 plan of "Halo, Gears, Family Games" years earlier and abandon much of what made the 360 a success or do they allow Nintendo's division to operate as a separate pillar of their Gaming brand and instead never go in hard on the casual games market since that would be entirely under Nintendo's umbrella?
Would Kinect ever be a thing? They'd probably milk their Xbox/Wii hybrid for at least one gen and maybe they'd release Kinect as their next gen console.
The acquisition of Rare was a disaster but they were a significantly smaller company than Nintendo so it wouldn't be as simple as acquiring a studio.
Ask Miyamoto what he'd want and I promise you he would rather not sell Nintendo to MS. He would 100% pick autonomy over good hardware.
I'm sure any publisher on the planet, even today, would hire Miyamoto and give him a blank check. "Shigeru Miyamoto joins PlayStation/Xbox/Ubisoft/etc.." is a headline pulled out of an executive's wet dream.
If he wanted to make games for better hardware, he would've left Nintendo years ago.
Not to mention that a number of Nintendo's hardware design decisions (particularly around controllers) were directly influenced by Miyamoto's game design interests.
MS bought Rare because they believe it comes with Donkey Kong. LOL
So glad this didn't actually happen and there's no way Nintendo would allow it to but would have been for it if it meant "saving" Sega. That's the one I want to hear more about, either more in-depth from Moore or actually from Sega and Microsoft.
Hahaha, I never thought I'd see this Cool Runnings clip appear in a thread like this. Its one of my favorite scenes in the movie haha. The lady and the last guy always gets me
Holy shit to be a fly on the wall.
Finally Iorek Byrnison can be the only user with that armor bear avatar.
So this kinda begs the question:
Which companies, if any, did Microsoft manage to acquire in 1999-2000? And did any of them have an impact? And were there any companies that declined the deal, but maybe shouldn't have?
If they can make the licensing deals happen with Sega they should try it again.
Why would you think the Wii would have even existed under Microsoft?
if that happened i wonder if their combined force would have killed the PS3. Sony seems like they would have gone the same route regardless of what their competitors did at the time.
still, not as big as if Nintendo and Sony had partnered back in the day and didn't try to backstab eachother.
still, not as big as if Nintendo and Sony had partnered back in the day and didn't try to backstab eachother.
Glad it never happened. The two are so diametrically opposed in their goals currently. I don't think it would have lasted long anyways.
Ballmer's grand strategy on the entertainment side was to capture the living room and they likely would have turned to Nintendo for hardware advice on that front given their history of family friendly success.
The premise of Microsoft's approach to Nintendo was that Microsoft knew more about hardware than Nintendo, though.