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Microsoft GameCube (Games) It's funny. Laugh.

EA Founder Predicts MS Purchase of Nintendo 132

Posted by Zonk from the that's-quite-an-eight-ball dept.
New site Xbox2News.com (via Evil Avatar) has up an interview with Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts and recent AIAS inductee. During the course of the interview, he is asked what he sees as the future course for Nintendo. His answer? "My magic eight ball says they will be acquired by Microsoft within five years." Tycho has commentary on the man's forcasting abilities in today's post.
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EA Founder Predicts MS Purchase of Nintendo More

EA Founder Predicts MS Purchase of Nintendo

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  • I just don't see it happening. Ever.

    • Re:no way (Score:2, Funny)

      by squall14716 ( 734306 )
      The Inquirer reports:

      "Now he is safely retired, the 77-year old former Nintendo boss Hiroshi Yamaushi is regaling Wired magazine about how he reverted to abuse to silence the mighty Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

      Apparently Microsoft was making a bid to buy Nintendo for absolutely huge amounts of money. Vole was confident that Nintendo would take it. The Game Cube wasn't doing particularly well at the time and there was a lot of money involved. Ballmer himself showed up at the negotiations to have a quiet wo

  • well.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:23PM (#11758162) Homepage Journal
    ea's grand plan is to just buy everything.

    surely they must think that other companies do so as well and by logic microsoft is bigger than N, so they buy them.
  • That's a big shocker. Didn't we all read a little while ago, that when Bill Gates was asked about buying Nintendo, he said something in regards to "I haven't talked to them, but if the Nintendo President called me up, I'd definitely answer the phone". This doesn't seem like any additional news, besides the obivious assumption that Microsoft likes Nintendo, is in competition with Nintendo, and therefore, could theoretically, buy Nintendo to aid in competition with Sony. Gasp! What a surprise!

    • Nope (Score:1)

      by PeelBoy ( 34769 )
      That conversation had NOTHING to do with buying Nintendo.

      Somebody over heard bill g saying that if nintendo called he would answer the phone.

      Nothing more.

      It had nothing to do with buying Nintendo. A reporter heard the word Nintendo come out of bills mouth and they blew it up into something it wasn't.

      All of the major game sites already dispelled that rumor long ago.

      I'll give you links if you are interested.
    • "I haven't talked to them, but if the Nintendo President called me up, I'd definitely answer the phone".

      And, IIRC, Yamauchi's response was, with his typical flair, to tell Bill to sit on it and rotate (not in so many words, of course).

      Seriously, Yamauchi may not be calling the shots any more, but he and his family still own the company (which is why the headquarters continues to technically be in Japan even though more and more of the shots are called by the Redmond office). I really don't see Nintendo

  • Magic 8 Ball... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alkaiser ( 114022 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:24PM (#11758184) Homepage
    Where was it when you were trying to figure out if making 80 Army Men games in 3 years was a good idea?
    • If I had mod points right now, you would have gotten one.
    • My signs point to yes.

    • Re:Magic 8 Ball... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Psychochild ( 64124 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {dlihcohcysp}> on Thursday February 24, 2005 @01:41AM (#11763881) Homepage
      Haha! Exactly. I'm a 3DO survivor and know exactly how well ol' Trip's Magic 8 Ball works.

      (Side note, why not mention him as founder of 3DO instead of EA? It's more recent, and oh, yeah, out of business! :P)

      Seriously, this is the man that for years said online gaming wasn't ready for prime time, that it wasn't profitable, etc, despite the obvious successes of online games. It sucked for me, because my team working on Meridian 59 [meridian59.com] got almost no resources since online games couldn't be profitable, according to Trip's Magic 8 Ball. So, it's not a surprise that it faded into oblivion only to be resurrected by a much smaller company that cares. And has made the game profitable with few resources.

      Ah, well. Hopefully one day I'll have a fluke success so people will listen to me no matter how irrelevant I become.

      Have fun,
  • " I don't think prices will go up, in part because gamers can always rent the games." WTF? The norm for a new game is 50 bucks. By his rational the new game price would have been steadily been dropping for the past decade because we've always been able to rent. I don't buy the renting theory. There is a certain je nae say qua about owning the game.

  • Funny, my magic 8-ball says... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MBraynard ( 653724 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:32PM (#11758271) Journal
    Today, Slashdot will post silly, unsubstantiated rumors from 'experts' speculating out of their nose.
  • i really dont think the monopolys and mergers commision would be very happy about this.nintendo is a large company ,
    and have a large stake in the games market , most importantly the dominance of the mobile gameing maket. Now this may change due to the advent of the PSP ,
    though as it stands now Nintendo is neigh on a monopoly in this position.

    • Re:Lets just say (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @04:11PM (#11759317) Journal
      Those are also good reasons that Nintendo won't be bought by Microsoft. They've got dominance in the mobile market, but I'll admit (I don't like to admit, but I will) that that dominance is probably not going to last out the year.

      Even so, Nintendo's not going anywhere. They survived major screwups in the past because they're a huge company, and remember that video games aren't their only product. Nintendo's been around since 1889, and they have a lot of power behind them.

      The worst thing that I see happening to Nintendo (it's still years off if it happens, but the PSP just might be the deciding factor one way or the other) is that they'll go the way of Sega - not making systems anymore, but producing their games accross multiple other systems. They have the franchise power, and I believe they still have the genius in there somewhere to make truely new things.

      Mario on the Xbox? Pokemon on the PSP? Zelda on the PC? Hell, I never thought I'd see Sonic and Mario on the same system in my lifetime, but it's happened, and I think Sega is better for it in the long run.

      • Re:Lets just say (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Hell, I never thought I'd see Sonic and Mario on the same system in my lifetime, but it's happened, and I think Sega is better for it in the long run.
        Meanwhile, in the short run, SEGA is D.E.A.D., dead. The plug has been pulled. The fact that it's IP is owned by Sammy and some of it's former employees work there does not mean it is alive in any meaningful way...
        • Keep in mind Sega still has a very large arcade business. The Dreamcast is still alive in the arcade. That and they recently merged with a pachinko company, and pachinko is freakishly profitable in Japan. Their game sales are also up, since they're developing on a number of platforms, instead of just a single console which was being outsold by either Nintendo or Sony (if not both) at nearly every turn.
      • Sega is not doing very well. They are putting out good games, but when's the last time you've seen one of their titles in a platform top 10?

        It's really too bad because Sega was one of the few big companies that understood good gameplay & controls really, really well. And I love shenmue!

  • 3DO (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Grond ( 15515 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:39PM (#11758357) Homepage
    Tripp Hawkins was also the CEO of 3DO, and we all know how well that worked out. I'd say his credibility in terms of prediction was pretty much shot since he thought the 3DO would take over the world. As opposed to, you know, being a wildly overpriced system with a handful of lame, FMV-laden titles.
    • Star Control II Need for Speed Road Rash Return Fire Space Hulk Starfighter Wing Commander 3 Lucienne's Quest Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo Samurai Shodown Killing Time Twisted SnowJob Alone in the Dark Body Conscience Digital rave (just kidding...well I did play it more than jetset radio) etc. I mean 3DO has quite a few AWESOME and unique games.It's not the FMV wasteland that some folks make it out to be.
      • Star Control II

        Haven't played it myself, but I want to get it.

        Need for Speed
        Road Rash
        Return Fire

        Also great games. No racing game has matched the sheer fun of Need for Speed, and Return Fire is also a great game.

        Space Hulk

        I think this was a PC port.

        Starfighter

        Good game.

        Wing Commander 3

        Port, but it played a hell of a lot better than the PC version. Lots of FMV.

        Lucienne's Quest

        Haven't played it, but it was a 3DO original.

        Super Street Fighter 2
        Samurai Shodown

        Obviously arcade ports, alt
        • 3DO ssf2t was the only way to play the arcade at home until the PC was fast enough to do it mame (and the roms were decrypted). The PC version had most of the mechanics spot on, but a few things were off and I really missed the little glint in ken's eye before he did the "shoryureppa" :)
          • The Sega Saturn and PSX had it as well (I think it was before MAME was around, and certainly before PCs were fast enough to do proper emulation). It was marketed as the Street Fighter Collection and came on two discs. But you are right, the 3DO version was the first home version to really be worth a damn (and one of the reasons the 6 button controller on the 3DO was such a popular accessory. :) )

        • Re:3DO (Score:2, Informative)

          by Bustbang ( 689845 )
          I can't believe I forgot Fifa Soccer with it's wicked fun 6 player mode.

          Space hulk vengeance of the blood angles is a 3DO original,pc psx & saturn are ports.
          Snowjob is a QTVR like game.
          Killing Time had FMV in the intro and the ending.No FMV during the game.

          Actually I have a memory card and mpeg1 video adapter for the fz1 "two unused expansion ports"The modem,mpeg2 & M2 cards never materialized.

          How can you blame Trip for:

          Goldstar's rubbish game selection
          Samsung barely trying
          The no shows in AT

          • Re:3DO (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Craig Maloney ( 1104 ) *
            Space hulk vengeance of the blood angles is a 3DO original,pc psx & saturn are ports.
            Snowjob is a QTVR like game.
            Killing Time had FMV in the intro and the ending.No FMV during the game.
            Didn't know SpaceHulk was a 3DO original.
            Killing Time had FMV spiced throughout the game as you completed levels and entered different rooms.

            Actually I have a memory card and mpeg1 video adapter for the fz1 "two unused expansion ports"The modem,mpeg2 & M2 cards never materialized.
            Ah, you're right... I forgot about
            • ... and the M2 was nowhere near production (M2: Coming soon!)

              Actually, the M2 was essentially cancelled at the last minute. There are working prototypes out there, and in fact, they're not even that hard to find. Right now there are TWO prototype M2's on eBay, and one of them has a Buy It Now of only $30. Of course, finding games and such might be a bit of a problem, but the point is that this system was almost out and had the door slammed in it's face.
      • " Star Control II"

        PC port. Kinda surprised it didn't also appear on a Sega system, since SC1 was ported to the Genny.

        "Road Rash"

        Also available on Genny.

        "Space Hulk"

        PC port.

        "Wing Commander 3"

        PC port.

        "Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo"

        Arcade port that had already been done to death on both the SNES and Genny.

        And a lot of the other games you mentioned were also available on competitors' boxen as wel. The original PC games that were ported were also pretty damned close to being in the bargin bin
        • SC 1 was ported to the PC from the amiga.

          In the case of Star Control II and Road Rash they were better than the originals.Road Rash was a Night and Day difference from the genesis version.So was John Madden football and Fifa soccer.

          Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels-
          Is a 3DO original,a year later it was ported to PC,PSX and Saturn.

          Some of the PC ports to 3DO were complete remakes.Super Wing Commander was a complete remake of Wing commander 1 with improved graphics and speech.

          I remember playing th

  • Nintendo is not for Sale (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Aggrazel ( 13616 ) <aggrazel@gmail.com> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:39PM (#11758361) Journal
    If Nintendo were unprofitable, I would think they could be for sale.

    But they are not. They are VERY profitable. They have the BIGGEST franchizes in games. They have no reason to sell to Microsoft unless Microsoft offers ludicrous money.

    Also, Nintendo isn't just video games. Pokemon anyone?

    Anyway, I don't see Nintendo ever selling to anyone.
    • You do understand that Pokemon is a video game, right?
    • Remember what happened to Square? In 1998, it was making money hand over fist. Just five years later, due to bad decision-making, it came out on the losing end of a merger with Enix. I could easily see the same thing happening to Nintendo, just not with Microsoft. Or EA, for that matter.

      Rob
      • Sony maybe? Or maybe Mitsubishi. Those guys are close to having a vertical monopoly (where you produce a little bit of everything, not so much that you have a particular market cornered.) Seriously, go take a look at Mitsubishi's website [mitsubishicorp.com] and see how many different things that company does. In addition to the TV's and automobiles that we know about (both Mitsubishi and Isuzu,) Mitsubishi does textiles, chemicals, energy, construction machines, mining, foods, production of space and aircraft equipment, f

      • Re:Nintendo is not for Sale (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hibiki_r ( 649814 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @03:51PM (#11759113)

        Square has always worked on high expense, high reward games like Final Fantasy. Their average project's cost has always been among the highest in the industry. Just a couple of games that don't sell very well sends a company like that to their knees. Nintendo, on the other hand, makes as many "surefire" low budget games as EA. How much does it really cost to make warioware?. How much for porting a random Mario game to the latest console?. Even their big budget games are not even in teh same league as a Final Fantasy games as far as project costs go.

        A Nintendo bankrupcy would only happen if all of their hardware divisions fail XBOX-in-Japan style. Nintendo has some serious brand problems, but it'd take unbelieveable incompetence to make them fail in 5 years.

        • Actually, what broke Square's back was the Final Fantasy movie. Their game division was and is doing fine, but their loss on the FF movie was well over $100 million. That's what forced them into the merger.
          • Luckily Nintendo didn't lose their shirts on the Wizard [imdb.com] or this abomination called Super Mario Bros. [imdb.com] Sadly, making a bad movie from a video game isn't confined just to Square.
          • That much hurt them, but not near as much as we may have been lead to believe. The real reason behind the merger is partly due to the movie, and partly due to Japanese business ethics. The movie was a big money sink. Huge money sink, and in return all they got back was some name recognition and a suite of now out-of-date SGI computers. So Hironobu Sakaguchi, the series creator, was pushed to the side. He'd already started on Final Fantasy IX , so they allowed him to finish it up, and he'd envisioned large

        • Re:Nintendo is not for Sale (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          And yet Nintendo's games are infinitely more fun and rewarding than anything Square produces. Also, I would never call games with eye-candy "rewarding" because they have good graphics or lots of content.

          Additionally I think you seriously under-estimate the actual cost of Nintendo-developed games - whereas Square spend their time on content Nintendo spends their time on the play experience/game mechanics. Most of their major games are in development for 2-3 years with decent sized teams working on them -
          • And yet Nintendo's games are infinitely more fun and rewarding than anything Square produces. Also, I would never call games with eye-candy "rewarding" because they have good graphics or lots of content.

            As a person who typically dislikes traditional RPGs, there was a time I would have agreed with you. But Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (played with 4 friends) dropped the traditional "eye-candy" cutscenes and showed they can make very engaging gameplay.

            I have a very

      • Nintendo Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mitaphane ( 96828 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @04:02PM (#11759202) Homepage
        I don't think the two companies are really comparable. Square was (and Square-Enix is) mostly a game studio for one niche genre of games with an occasional non-RPG game here and there. All they did was make the games. Before the merger Square had EA doing their distribution in the states.

        Nintendo, on the other hand, does more than just make their games; they handle all the other aspects. They handle their own distribution. They have a tremendous amount of capital saved up for investing on game production. They make their own console and portable systems. And then there's Nintendo's other side markets like Pokemon cards and such.

        Square made a huge gamble on borrowing all that money for the Honolulu studios that made FF: The Spirits Within. The odds didn't turn out in their favor and eventually they had to sell that studio. Mostly like they mergered with Square-Enix for a major capital boost.

        Nintendo on the other hand would have to make a really huge investment to put them in the trouble that Square got in. And given Nintendo's past conservative tendencies I don't think they're going to do this anytime soon. They're going to keep playing it safe for quite sometime into future. And it's going to keep earning them money.
    • They have no reason to sell to Microsoft unless Microsoft offers ludicrous money.

      You forget that Bill Gates is one of a handfull of people who have a Ludicrous Dollar Bill.

  • The guy is an idiot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EvilDonut ( 164879 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:42PM (#11758385)
    He is a complete tool. Check out his response to this question:

    With the next Xbox planned for release prior to Nintendo's and Sony's next systems, the cost of implementing a next-gen media format (HD-DVD or Blu-Ray) would be expensive. What do you think if Xbox 2 used the standard DVD format instead of high definition?

    Personally, I don't think this is an important distinction. But maybe some early adopters will care about this and at least initially sway market share. HD will only be relevant in the long run if applications like football use it effectively to enable you to see more of the field. But I think the players are already on information overload as it is.


    He doesn't know what HD-DVD or Bluray is! He doesn't understand the question!

    With regards to his Nintendo prediction, apparently no-one's told him that Ninty has been profitable for 43 years straight, and have something like $8 billion in the bank. Why the hell would they want to sell to Microsoft?

    • Obvious! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They'd like to break into the North American market, and what better way than opening up shop in Redmond, WA. More over they could get back to their roots with a Nintendo branded version of Freecell.
    • Dvd's were put into use over vhs because they were supposed to offer multiple angles something that these new formats ARE AGAIN OFFERING!

      These companies can't figure out why people adopt new infintesimally better tech, they assume we are using the multiple angles feature.

      In football that would be very useful I imagine.

      The preceding was brought to you by a devil's advocate, I don't think Nintendo will be puchased, except maybe by sony.

      Nintendo is attitude American ownership would FS*C it in the $%%.
      • Yeah, but like the previous poster said, it has nothing to do with video games. HD-DVD/bluray gives you more storage, and that's it. You can have multiple viewing angles and High Definition regardless of your storage medium.

        This Hawkins guy is obviously out to lunch.

    • High Definition/High Density DVD's are designed to carry HD content. So obviously the point he is trying to make is that you only need HD-DVD for High Definition Applications (read software). He is thus saying that he's not sure HD applications will be that important because there isn't much incremental entertainment value in having a more pristine picture, unless Application developers somehow can take advantage of this feature. Thus, eventually if the devs can make more of the football field visible us
      • No, it's you and Trip who aren't getting the point.

        Firstly, by your logic, since CD's are designed to carry Audio content, therefore I only need a CD drive in my PC to install audio applications, such as itunes.

        But never mind that, what you interpret him as meaning is that you only need HD-DVD for software if that software is trying to product output at HD-TV resolutions, because in order for software to put such an insane ammount of information on screen you'll need gigs and gigs of textures and data.

        Se

      • High Definition/High Density DVD's are designed to carry HD content.

        They're designed for high definition DVD MOVIES. You can store a high definition video game on anything. In fact, most existing games on DVD-or-equivalent would look great if they were rendered in higher resolution. The reason that they're not in HD is because the console doesn't support it, not because they don't have enough storage.

        In other words, Hawkins hears "HD-DVD" and thinks "allows HD display modes" instead of "greater stora

  • American Purchase? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by redpawn ( 794471 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:43PM (#11758393)
    Do you guys really think Nintendo, a traditional Japanese company would ever sell itself to an American company like Microsoft? I highly doubt it. Nintendo is a very proud company, unless they're completely dead I think they'll keep kicking. If they had to sell out I'd think they'd be more interested in giving assets to Sony than Microsoft. I'm sure Microsoft would love to acquire Nintendo, that would probably help them out a lot in the Japanese market. But coming from the founder of EA I put little to no stock in his .02.
    • Not to mention that any non-Japanese company can't own more than 49% of any Japanese company. Although, this doesn't cover Nintendo selling off their NA division. What good would that do, though? All their games are made in Japan, and translated here.
      • This is completely false. There are stringent Japanese ownership rules, but there is no hard-and-fast-law saying non-Japanese companies may not buy Japanese ones. Shinsei Bank, for example, is owned by Ripplewood Holdings, an American firm.
    • The people in charge of Nintendo's business are CEOs and MBAs, not Samurai or Ronin or whatever Japanese stereotype you're thinking of here. In the end it comes down to dollars and yen and what makes the most financial sense, not a sense of pride or traditional Japanese-ness.

  • How long... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Arctic Dragon ( 647151 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:46PM (#11758428)
    How long before Super Mario Brother XP is released?

  • MSFT & Acquisitions (Score:4, Interesting)

    by afabbro ( 33948 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @03:23PM (#11758814) Homepage
    Just as a general point of info...Microsoft has never done an acquisition of this size. Not even close.

    Given their management's emphasis on employee culture, deciding to merge with an organization as large as Nintendo would be a real surprise.

    • Before the launch of the Xbox and GC, Microsoft did attempt to aquire Nintendo. Nintendo said they'd sell, too... for $25 billion in cash.

      You're right, MS has never taken an aquisition like that... that'd be half their short term investments and cash reserves right there. A few million dollars here and there to buy out a company (or a few hundred million in some cases) is much easier on the reserves than $25 billion is.

  • "Hey, Ballmer.. Why don't"... (Score:3, Informative)

    by rylin ( 688457 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @03:33PM (#11758926)
    Yeah, I'm sure MS will try again after what happened last time. . .
    http://www.gamerah.com/ver_imagen.php?id=226 [gamerah.com]
    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20547 [theinquirer.net]
  • First, as some others have said, the Nintendo buyout speculation is probably just smoke drifting off the top of Hawkins' head. But it is certainly not impossible. A lot of unlikely things would have to happen first. For one, Nintendo is facing a significant threat in the form of the Sony PSP which could, despite its technical drawback re battery life, eat into the profits that Game Boy dominance has brought Nintendo for many years. If Sony took say 25% to 40% of the handheld market from Nintendo, that would

  • That would be the last straw (Score:3, Funny)

    by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @03:49PM (#11759082) Journal
    I really think my disdain for Microsoft would turn into a full-blown rage. I'm getting angry just thinking about it.

    Goddamnit, does their douchebaggery have no limits?
  • I predict that in 5 years MS pulls out of the console race entirely based on poor Xbox 3 sales. Then MS buys EA. MS is a software company so it actually makes sense.
    • Does anybody realize in this 'theoretical' 5 years, those NFL and baseball exclusivity contracts will *still* be in effect? No point here. Just wow.
  • That is crazy talk.

    Worst case scenario for Nintendo. They lose all market share in both the console and handheld markets. If this happened, they'd start releasing their games for other system. My guess is if they starting releasing games on the PS2, they'd probably jump right to the top of the most successful game publishers.
  • I think the same "rumour" was sprouted around the same time last year, and possibly even before that. I think it would be a sad state of affairs if that were to happen.
  • Several analysts have mentioned the same before. There are several benefits from a merger between nintendo and MS in the console market.

    MS has a good cover of the adult/young adult target, has a strong online service and the hardware is probably the most featured rich in the market however it has failed to penetrate the japanese market and (with certain huge exceptions) doesnt have good 1st party titles.

    Nintendo is completely in the other side of the spectre, his target centers in the children/family targ
  • Based on principles alone, I'd say Nintendo would much rather go with Sony than Microsoft. Neither of them really meets their standards of endurability on systems (I've seen pics of a GB Color that was dropped in motor oil and came out working, with minor screen damage, compare to PS2 disk read error after a year or two) but I cannot see Nintendo willingly being bought by Microsoft. That's about as likely as Apple being bought by MS. They would alienate their fanbase in seconds, and that's death to a franch

  • MS + Nintendo = ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Money for Nothin' ( 754763 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @05:13PM (#11760046)
    Wintendo!
  • Ever since microsoft brought out the X-Box and started to become the gaming powerhouse they are today, there have been rumors that microsoft would buy various japanese/asian companies.

    Buying some japanese companies to gain a foothold in the japanese market makes sense for Microsoft (only if they are sucessfull companies obviously).

    But, given the way the japanese system works, its unlikely that the other players in the japanese market would sit by and let Microsoft (a big foriegn company) buy a well-known
  • I'm not sure of the intricacies of Nintendo in Japan, but Nintendo of America is a part of the Big N that might be sold to the MS. Perhaps Nintendo sees more money in no longer making hardware? (*cough* Sega *cough*)

    About the rushed Xbox 2-before-others, I remember two systems that did that (*cough* Saturn *cough* Dreamcast *cough*). Both systems were superior in everyway, but early release meant more expensive hardware and greater initial loss. By the time the costs caught up, the other systems were ou
    • I don't see how buying Nintendo of America would get MSFT a whole hill of beans. I mean what are NOA's products. The only one I can think of off hand is the Nintendo Power magazine. When you think of Nintendo, you're really thinking Nintendo of Japan. All the games, systems, etc that scream Nintendo are made in Japan. NOA is a glorified distributer.
  • "I predict than in 3 years earth will be hit by an asteroid, half of the USA will be lost forcing MS and most US companies to emigrate to Japan. In the meantime Linux becomes the most used OS in the world.

    However 1 1/2 year later the rest of the giant asteroid hits Japan without warning, most of Japan is destroyed forcing Japaneses to move to France, most companies get bought by EA (since France is EA's property now) and most Japanese become employees as soon as they land. Sony president dies and Nintendo'
  • Of course M$ tried to buy Nintendo before and the Nintendo board told them "Thanks but NO Thanks!"

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