Nintendo Buys Bandai Shares, Prompts Merger Speculation

Thanks to Reuters for their story that Nintendo have purchased over 1 million Bandai shares, making them one of Gundam creator and toy/game/film company Bandai's top 10 shareholders. A spokesman "...said Nintendo, the maker of GameCube home video consoles, which did not own any shares in Bandai as of March, has no intention of acquiring the toymaker", but GamesAreFun relay Japanese tabloid rumors that "a full-on merger between the two groups could take place sometime in the future." But it may be more likely, Video-Fenky points out, that "it's a move on Nintendo's part to win Bandai closer to their side and get them to release Gundam and Super Robot Taisen games... on their machine."

God bless fenegi-

[Gunsmithy]

Heh, I remember when this news first broke last night.

One true industry insider said it was a step towards Nintendo taking over Bandai. But...we had to wait for fenegi-. Fenegi-, of course, is the owner of Video-Fenky. Also great is the fact that the same fenegi- goodness seen in Video-Fenky [video-fenky.com] is dripping over to 1up.com [1up.com] like juice off of a rotissered ham. So visit both, guys, and support good gaming journalism.

Okay, fenegi-, I want my ten dollars now.

Re:Grammar

[dk4]

The Grammar is proper for English English, just not American English. In England, companies are plural, not singular as in the US. Get a clue.

Re:Grammar

[Mogomra]

Spelling errors usually bother me more than grammatical errors.

BTW, it's "usage".

Super Cool...

[Bai jie]

as long as neither company messes up the great work they are already doing individually.
I would love it if my favorite game maker and my favorite model kit producer came together.

If they do merge

[Mupp252]

Can we expect the long awaited sequel to Dick Tracy?

.Hack//Empire

[phlyingpenguin]

But Bandai also does .Hack which is currently PS2 material. I'd wonder what contracts lurk underneath that that could make Bandai switch consoles, I doubt Sony will let them switch over .Hack now after four games are released. .Hack is going over pretty big, and understandably so. I'd immagine Sony wants to keep .Hack so that they can create 'The World' online someday on their machine.

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Re:.Hack//Empire

[phlyingpenguin]

Well that's fairly good news, I hadn't heard about the creators wishes in the past. Being any commercial company I wouldn't set any limits on what Bandai will do, even if it isn't a mmorpg. There are plenty of other things I could immagine they could do to warp it into another video game should they decide that .Hack will profit for them.

Re:.Hack//Empire

[YomikoReadman]

Since I am an anime slut, and know a great deal more about .Hack than you, I am going to be a .Hack nazi.

1. .Hack//Sign was also a manga first. Many great anime series start like this.

2. The manga that follows the .Hack games is not key of the twilight, it's Legend of Dusk's Bracelet.

3. The anime has already been licensed, and we should be seeing that next year. It parallels the manga that is being released by TokyoPop.

/end .hack nazi rant.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:.Hack//Empire

[YomikoReadman]

I've already seen the anime, legend of twilights bracelet, as for the tokyopop translation of the title, well, densetsu no udewa translates quite literally as legend of dusk's bracelet. I can't remeber remeber the full japanese title, but look around and you'll find it. as far as there not being a translation of the anime to the manga, I've seen scanslations of that here and there. As far as their being a toonami/adult swim version, I could care less. I still have my fansubs, and will replace them with

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[account_deleted]

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Bandai has more than games. . .

[M3wThr33]

Bandai also makes the Mega Man Snap-kits that I love(Along with the Gundam ones, of course) and a lot of other products. I wonder if they will continue to make them IF this is a merger? Capcom DOES like Nintendo, but who knows?

the biggest Japanese toy franchises

[L-Train8]

Bandai makes toys for most of the biggest Japanese licenses. Not just Gundam, but Ultraman, Power Rangers, Digimon, Ultimate Muscle, Hello Kitty, and a lot more. They make DVD's of tons of popular anime, including various Gundam series and Cowboy Bebop. While most of this stuff isn't so big in the US, outside of the otaku community, it is giant in Japan. If Nintendo is able to leverage their ownership into more licensed games for the Japanese market, it could help them sell a lot of consoles and gain back some market share from Sony. I don't think it will have much effect in the US, however.

Wonderswan!!

[dq5 studios]

Wonderswan Wonderswan Wonderswan Wonderswan Wonderswan Wonderswan
Wonderswan Wonderswan Wonderswan Wonderswan Wonderswan Wonderswan

Maybe this means I'll finally get to play some American games on my Wonderswan! Gunpei-san's finest machine, if only he were still alive.

Re:Wonderswan!!

[Guppy06]

Hate to tell you this, but the WonderSwan has officially gone the way of the NeoGeo Pocket Color, the Tiger.com, the Nomad, the Game Gear, the Turbo Express, the Lynx, and where the N-Gage is currently heading. You won't even be seeing new Japanese games for the system.

Strange... it's only a couple percent of the co.

[WoTG]

2.6% of the company for $20-30 million USD (my math was a little rough, but I think I got within an order of magnitude).

It seems a little too small a share to be a prelude to a purchase. My uneducated guess would be that Nintendo is sitting on a lot of cash that it's earned over the years, and this is nothing more than an investment of excess cash (rather than buying t-bills or gold or something).