Microsoft tried to buy Nintendo 20 years ago "but they just laughed their asses off"

Eurogamer: What if Microsoft bought Nintendo in the run up to the original Xbox? The last 20 years of video games would look pretty different, I imagine. Well, it turns out Microsoft actually tried to make it happen.

[Abnor_Mal]

If this is true, damn Microsoft have been trying to buy up the market for a very long time now. Nintendo just laughed at them for what seemed like an hour straight, that is funny. They also tried to by EA, Capcom and others, but never made an attempt for Sony, I wonder why. Or is it they just wanted to simply crush Sony.

[Jin_Sakai]

I love Nintendo and grew up with as many on here did. If Microsoft ever bought them I’d never touch anything Nintendo again. I guarantee they’d westernize everything and run them into the ground.

[Silly gameAr]

I grew up with and loved nintendo too, but I feel like that towards Nintendo now. Seems like they're just resting on their laurels, and letting the media hype them up.

[Fluttershy77]

Agree 100% What makes Nintendo great is that they are very japanese, they've found a way to make accessible to the West the Japanese culture.
Also, MS destroyed Rare... What would be different here?...
I love Capcom too. The numbers at Capcom were really bad a few years ago. Since then they've done some good stuff imo: Megaman Legacy - 11 (and apparently a new one on the making), The Street Fighter 30th An was perfect, Resident Evil 2 remake one of my favorite games, I'm still waiting for a Dragon's Dogma sequel anyways I can go on and on ... but the point is, who knows really how the business is going for Capcom?

[Sonic-and-Crash]

MS was always the same ..never tried to invest in creators starting from zero...always tried to steal the magic from others....
i ill say that with HALO1 managed really to launch themselves to the top , up there with Sony and Ninty and then again shoot themselves on the foot by making that terrible sequel Halo 2 ....Halo 2 is the total proof how MS works (only 1 year development for the sequel of their best IP ever created on Xbox ,scrapping everything bungie had created , just to include XboxLive) , and how this way is NOT applicable in gaming industry

[nommers]

@Silly gameAr As much as Nintendo has been doing that and been quite overrated/underwhelming for a few gens now, letting MS buy them would be really bad.

[oakshin]

I grew up with them to but they suck selling me cardboard and the crap the doing to the smash brothers community is trash

[bouzebbal]

Than God they didn't.. Nintendo would be making kinect games

[neutralgamer1992]

Silly gamer

Couldn't agree more man there is definitely a double standard for how gaming journalists treat nintendo compared to PlayStation and xbox. Nintendo literally charged $60 for a cardboard box

[Sonic-and-Crash]

they tried to cooperate with Sony too ...back in the golden days of PS1 ...they proposed to them PS2 (back then was the next gen console )to have Windows as operating system ...but Sony denied categorecally

[Jin_Sakai]

Exactly. I’d never want Sony or Microsoft to buy them. Sony are good at what they do and Nintendo are good at what they do. I could care less about Xbox to be honest.

[TheExecutioner]

The way you speak makes you childish ...

no one can buy sony a 120 B net worth company.

but Nintendo 8.3 b, hell yeah Microsoft can buy it

[Shiken]

What a silly troll attempt. Nintendo is currently worth $85 billion net, and unlike Sony they are primarily a video game company.

You pull that 8.3 out of your ass, or just add a decimal and hope no one noticed?

[Zeref]

I'm willing to bet that Playstation will get bought by Apple, Amazon or Google in the future with the way things are going it's bound to happen.

They are going to make an offer that Sony can't refuse.

I'm hoping it will be Amazon.
Apple is too disgustingly capitalist and google is just evil. Amazon will be the lesser of two evils. And i feel like they would be on board with a lot of things that gamers want.

[RazzerRedux]

@Zeref

I've been reading idiotic prophesizes from people who don't know jack shit about they are talking about for years.

I'll just file yours along with all those who claimed Microsoft will give up on Xbox. You and those who make that claim are the same. Truth sucks, don't it?

[SmokinAces]

"Or is it they just wanted to simply crush Sony."

If so its a mission they failed at just as hard as their attempt to buy Nintendo.

[Zeref]

I'm pretty sure they were trying to buy anyone when they first entered the market. Cuz you know... It's a business...

[darthv72]

MS had a pretty good run with the MSX but that was the computer side. They were hoping to find a quick way into the console side by offering to buy Nintendo. And when that didn't work out, they approached both Sony and Sega to partner (for the OS of their systems) and Sony turned them down because they were already far along in their PS2 OS while Sega said sure. WinCE was very easy for Sega to get running with the DC and actually helped it come to market sooner than they expected.

[RazzerRedux]

If that would have happened, we would be reading an article called "Nintendo, In remembrance".

And not because of Microsoft. Because it was Steve Ballmer's Microsoft.

[FallenAngel1984]

Wasn’t this already known since 2002

[ThinkThink]

Yeah, this story makes the rounds over the years each time with a slightly different title. It's funnnnnnnn

[blackblades]

I didnt know, i knew Nintendo turned Sony down on working together with the cd but not this. Anyways makes sense that a big Corp would do that. Looking at today they are still at it.

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

They didn't turn Sony down since they worked together for a while.

[CrimsonWing69]

Lol!

[SoulWarrior]

Well thank god that never actually happened.

[GhostTurtle]

"The pitch was their hardware stunk, and compared to Sony PlayStation, it did..."

Uhhh, both the N64 and the GCN were more powerful than both the PS1 and PS2.

[Zhipp]

Apparently their tools for the GC were even better than Sony's. The only thing that held them back was the media format they chose.

[SullysCigar]

Ah yes, da toolz..

[S2Killinit]

Lol Nintentroling hard

[YourMommySpoils]

Microsoft would have destroyed it, like they destroyed themselves.

[RazzerRedux]

lol....one of the richest companies ever destroyed themselves? Ok...

[Longadog]

3rd place guys .. even with the so-called unlimited war chest yet continuously getting embarrassed by those two smaller companies .. sure gotta be proud of it .

you green babies are really something .. you honestly ought to share whatever GaAS man slob greenburg gave you to smoke

[RazzerRedux]

@Longadog

"you green babies are really something"

Yep. I just love being the biggest Xbox fanboy on n4g. And everyone knows it. /s

lol...whatever. I'm talking about this claim MS "destroyed themselves" and you are talking about them coming in third place. How the hell you equate the two....no idea.

Go back to sleep

[Stanjara]

Yeah, richest because enterprise products, not commercial.

[RazzerRedux]

@Stanjara

Factually incorrect. One third of Microsoft's revenue is from their "More Personal Computing" segment which focuses on consumers, not enterprise. Without their consumer segment, they would not be where ranked where they currently are.

https://www.microsoft.com/e...

Regardless, the argument I'm making is Microsoft has in no way "destroyed themselves". I cannot believe people believe that statement is controversial. It flatly isn't.

[YourMommySpoils]

Just because they're rich doesn't mean they're good at making consoles lol right at ya

[Longadog]

Yes because the topic you are responding to has absolutely nothing to do with gaming nor with any of the 3 predominant companies. so i guess intentional ignorance is a bliss, perhaps? but yup, as i said, you really need to share whatever crack you into.. lol

[RazzerRedux]

@TylerID

Never said they were so "right at ya".

@Longadog
"Yes because the topic you are responding to has absolutely nothing to do with gaming nor with any of the 3 predominant companies. "

lol...you just now figured that out, huh? Then you should also have realized how idiotic it was to start yapping about "3rd place" when this was about Microsoft overall. Like I said....you made a flatly stupid equivalency but you are too busy trying to pretend you are clever by blubbering about crack and Aaron Greenberg.

[MadLad]

4th generation of consoles. Biggest game subscription service. Just acquired top tier developers for billions of dollars.
Oh, and basically owns the PC market.

What a failure :^)

[RazzerRedux]

"Oh, and basically owns the PC market."

edit: realized you mean generally, not gaming specifically.

[BlaqMagiq1]

Phew. Glad that didn't happen. As a fan of Nintendo if they went in this direction they would've been ran into the ground which would've ended my love for Nintendo.

[talocaca]

That would've been the end of Nintendo.

[MadLad]

Why?

[CrimsonWing69]

Probably because what we’ve seen with Rare and what that acquisition has produced.

[TheTony316]

Just look at Rare.

[MadLad]

@crimson/Tony

You guys need to stop regurgitating the MS killed Rare meme.
You know who killed Rare? It was the owners of Rare.
They ran the company to the ground with over expectation and constant crunch. They pushed their employees so hard that the key employees left. This was prior to the acquisition.
When MS bought them, they gave them full creative control for multiple titles. When they didn't sell in the numbers they were hoping, they didn't close the studio, but directed them on a supervisory level.

Every time someone says MS killed Rare, it just shows another person who has no idea what actually was going on.

[NukeDaHippies]

Would Japan ever let that happen?

Microsoft feels like they've just been running around buying talent, so this news isn't surprising. Still waiting to see how some of these studio's pan out. Their track record with their bought studios isn't great.

Makes me wonder if it's poor management or they're buying the wrong people.

[SullysCigar]

It's almost as if they buy up talented, successful studios and then all the talented, successful people leave..

MS own a lot of these studios in name and IP only - which looks great on paper, but ... well, we've all seen the crap they end up producing, sadly.

[TheTony316]

Can you imagine Nintendo under MS? I'd rather not.

[strayanalog]

I'm kinda surprised some don't know this, but then I remember my age. Oh well. I laughed then, although probably not as hard as Nintendo, but it was entertaining. Still is. Admittedly, the bloomberg article does have some good info though, which stops this from feeling like a retread.

https://www.bloomberg.com/n...

[rlow1]

It's a really good read. To bad many on here don't take the time.

[Aussiesummer]

How American.

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

All that just to beat Sony. Lmao talk about an obsessive girlfriend.

[Kingoftherodeo]

not beating it was more about keeping their share. Sony had weight at the time, all they worry about now is sony making a better console than they do. Sony isn't what it was back in its day, which is why making a better console is their top priority. They can't lose out to others in their most successful sector

[gold_drake]

good, i would have done the same xD
but it just shows you the MS has been in this shopping spree game for a long time now. im so glad they werent able to buy any of them ha.

[rlow1]

Another cherry picked quote from a really good article on bloomberg. The article was interviewing the executives that started Xbox and how it all came together.....A really interesting read.

[VTKC]

Good

[Kingoftherodeo]

don't know if everyone is either too young to remember or they only read certain parts. If you remember the 80's and 90's anything sony made was a great quality product. They were giants Microsofts fear was if they ever made the move from electronics into a more computer-based product they would start cutting into their market share. Ms plan was to get as many PC's into people's homes as they already had that but PC was mostly used for work. So they went into gaming as their Trojan Horse. It sorta worked out since Xbox is still around, Ms doesn't have to worry about Sony except in gaming. Sony is the one that has to worry about losing out to either Ms or Nintendo since most of their revenue comes from gaming. Crazy how a giant company that used to have a gold quality for electronics was reduced to what it is now.

[Longadog]

ofcourse, Microsoft taking the tag of being the "joke of the gaming community" to a whole new level...

[NLink0714]

*raughs*

[autobotdan]

They tried to purchase Nintendo 20 years ago. 20 years later they are trying to purchase Sega?