Moore: Microsoft considered acquiring Nintendo

by Justin McElroy on Sep 17th 2008 10:45AM

The Guardian's excellent interview with Peter Moore continued yesterday with a frank discussion of his final days at Sega after the Dreamcast's death, as well as his arrival at Microsoft. Moore talks about some of his early discussions with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and admits that while the company always planned on warring with Sony, Nintendo wasn't necessarily seen as a threat.

Moore said, "[Ballmer] wanted to know how I was going to win for Microsoft, how we were going to take on Sony, how would we compete with – or acquire – Nintendo. Those were the conversations in those days. It was a classic build or buy conversation. ... Interestingly, we were just completely fixated on Sony – Nintendo didn't even come into the conversation."

Would "buy" have been the right move? That consolidation probably wouldn't have been good for us consumers but, if MS had kept a hands-off approach, Bill Gates might have finally had the cash to buy that moon he's always wanted.

Source

Tags: microsoft, nintendo, sega, sony, Xbox, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (91)

I don't see how the thought of it on 360 could be bad. I'ts been nearly eight years since it was considered a Nintendo exclusive, you've had plenty of time to deal with it ("it" being Microsoft, excuse me, M$'s acquisition of Rare Limited).

Surely it doesn't carry the same weight as, say, Super Bonk on SNES... The Madness!

"the M$ is used because on here it helps people better get who it is...."

Yeah, because people who read a video game enthusiast blog might be unsure as to who Microsoft is.

The question that's really important here though is how did you know I was wearing panties?

"Well... according to previews, the new Banjo is really bad."

Which previews? I haven't read anything overly negative, but I haven't read anything about it recently.

to you M$ people...

ya'll might as well put a fucking dollar sign in my name too because like microsoft, I love money..

ka$tonie

man... thats nice!

"Well... according to previews, the new Banjo is really bad."

What previews are saying that? I haven't seen any lately, but I haven't been on the lookout, either.

"Well... according to previews, the new Banjo is really bad."

lolcomowut? o_O I can haz link?

Fernando do you want all PS360 games to bomb now? I thought you were partial to 360. =/

the huge a button came from the 64 controller just like the c analog. i loved the cube pad for nintendo games but it sometimes gave me trouble with others

I'm glad a couple other people are confused about that Banjo comment too. The last preview I saw was fairly positive. I thought I'd missed something important. I'm really looking forward to the new Banjo game. I'll be terribly disappointed if it's a bad game.

Fenix

lol... of course not.

I really want to play the new Banjo game, but I just read the latest hands on a big site, but I'm looking the link and I can't find it =(

But they were pretty hard with the game, specially because is all vehicles and almost nothing of platformer.

I'm still gonna buy it, I already preordered the game to get the free Live Arcade game.

Also, I really wanted to buy Star Wars, but after playing the demo and reading the reviews, I will buy it when is $30 dlls.

I just don't want other titles that I really want to play to get average reviews, specially Fable II and Gears (well, no worries, both games looks GREAT)

But a lot of big games have been receiving bad reviews like Too Human, Star Wars, Infinite Undiscovery, Mercenaries 2... and I wanted to buy some of those games, but not anymore. well, at least not at $60 dlls.

Let me find the link...

Please, don't get me wrong, Im not bashing the game. Is one of my most anticipated games this holiday.

This was the last preview I read:

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/08/22/x08-getting-jiggy-with-banjo-kazooie

What$ wrong with the dollar $ign? All bu$ine$$' care about money. That$ the whole point, the $ in M$ or $ony i$n't going to kill anyone :)

Oh Maverick,

You're $ucha $illy $ally

:P

(yawn) Old news. This was news like 2-3 years ago.

Wtf this is dumb.

Funny how he casually mentions acquiring Nintendo... I remember reading couple years ago about an interview with some Nintendo exec (could've been Iwata or Miyamoto, or someone else can't quite remember) about how Microsoft reps approached them with a buy offer and got laughed out of the office. Apparently their offer was leaps and bounds below Nintendo's cash stock, let alone net worth.

"HEY, BALLMER, WHY DON'T YOU SUCK MY TINY YELLOW BALLS?"

I'm sure some of you remember this hilarious interview.

http://www.linkskywalker.com/Documents/Humor/223.aspx.htm

no it's not real, but man is it a good read.

I like how he blames Viva Pinata's lack of success on Rare being out of touch. Not poor marketing, the fact that one seldom gets an idea of the gameplay from the videos, or the fact that they were marketing to an audience they didn't have. But no, Rare just make games people don't want to play, that makes much more sense.

Takahashi wrote about this in the Opening the Xbox book from 2002. They were in serious talks about acquiring Nintendo for quite some time, but if i remember correctly the old president of Nintendo wanted to see how the GameCube did first.

Microsoft was also in talks about acquiring Sega, EA, and Midway.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the funny part about the whole midway thing. Midway was practically begging to be acquired, but Microsoft turned them down. Poor Midway...They just haven't gotten a break since 1995.

now if they made a 'Guts Mode' where when you broke a pinata a fountain of blood and guts spewed from the cutesy critters and splattered and oozed down the virtual camera for viva pinata 2 and showed that in the advertising it would probably sell better I could imagine a big nuke button ala lemmings could be put to good use here too.

ya I dont think nin would sale out to a US company..altho with the world falling apart stranger things have happened...

This has been common knowledge for years. Microsoft's offer was well below Nintendo's value, but the real dealbreaker was that Microsoft wanted Nintendo to cancel the GameCube (pre-launch) in favor of becoming a second party Xbox developer, and Nintendo was really passionate about the GameCube at the time.

Source?

Nintendo Wagglestation

Well, thats what M$ does best, is it not? Throwing away tons of money and stealing ideas.

Wasn't a threat ey? So what are they now? Still not a threat? :)

Can never get too complacent in the gaming industry, gamers are unpredictable, it could go either way, all those failed game machines including dreamcast, the poor sales of PS3 during its first year, and Nintendo's uprising taught us that.

Micro may have been third last gen, but look who is this gen, you never would have guessed looking back during the PS2 days. Heck, PS4 could possibly regain a foothold, then again, Microsoft could keep its position, or Nintendo could suprise people again with something new and innovative. Who knows what will happen, this is why I hate when business' get all arrogant, this makes them unprepared for suprises and hesitant to change when needed.

It's like a competition of who is the bigger man, they all laugh at lil Timmy, but when lil Timmy dissappears and reappears as a proffessional wrestler and suplexs em all, they are all left shocked, lmao

(worst example ever :D lol)

Let's be realistic....MICROSOFT could buy Nintendo if it really wanted to.

It'd be damn expensive....but they could do it.

yes it is possible, but they would have to finance it through some of their other holdings to acquire them and it would be a lose/lose in the end for both companies. also i would like to say GOONIES!

It would never happen. Nintendo would die before they'd sell out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcayngErSMg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvuZC1zVdGk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdF0as_jKGw

Damn it, do I really have to clarify my statement? sigh...

"It would never happen. Nintendo would die before they'd SELL THEIR COMPANY."

Get it now?

Ha, I had all those Mario toys back in the day...

Who is Nintendo exactly.... a faceless corporation whos primary job is to benefit their shareholders.... if it is in the best interest of the company they would sell. There may be executives who argue that selling would not benefit the company, but not all of them.

Back when the gamecube was floundering it was probably a good idea (obviously they made some very smart changes that saved the company.)

Being a Japanese company, and a very prominent one in the worldwide stage at that, again, I don't think their honor would let them sell out.

And I'm not kidding.

hasn't nintendo has been family owned from 1889 to 2002?

I suppose back then, they didn't want to sell the family company.

I'm talking about selling their company to another company.

Even if it did happen, they would never sell to an American company.

And I'm not kidding.

Nintendo is worth more than Sony, that means Nintendo at any time can buy Sony for all it's worth. Microsoft will also buy Nintendo, meaning Microsoft will have 3 different platforms consumers can choose to buy. Nintendo is worth 4x what Sony makes in 10 years, that's a fact and you know it.

yea, but they would have to finance the purchase by essentially selling everything and laying off everyone. then they would have to find a way to pay the salaries of the hundreds of thousands of sony employees they just picked up... or lay them off and have no workers and no money

...but 2 names!

can you give me a source that says Nintendo is worth more than Sony because I highly doubt that?

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Moore: Microsoft considered acquiring Nintendo

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