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Nintendo Isn’t Joining the Acquisition Arms Race Anytime Soon

Gotta have that Nintendo DNA, baby

There’s a lot of Nintendo news today. It’s quarterly report day! The headline I’m grabbing for this piece relates to all the studio acquisitions we’ve been seeing as of late. Microsoft’s ludicrously expensive Activision Blizzard purchase rocked the gaming world big time, and Sony announced a surprising acquisition of Halo and Destiny developer Bungie not long after. Naturally, the questions of who buys what next hasn’t slowed down in the least. But for now, Nintendo doesn’t seem to be jumping into the fray.

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During the post-fiscal report question and answer session, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked if there were plans to buy any big studios. Furukawa didn’t exactly say yes or no, because you really can’t do stuff like that during a financial call. But what he did say is pretty clear if you think about it.

Furukawa said, “Our brand was built upon products crafted with dedication by our employees, and having a large number of people who don’t possess Nintendo DNA in our group would not be a plus to the company.” Basically, the current thinking is that simply bolting companies onto Nintendo from the outside isn’t part of the plan.

That doesn’t mean Nintendo doesn’t acquire studios though, but history supports Furukawa’s statement. Acquired studios, such as most recently Luigi’s Mansion 3 developer Next Level Games, spent many years working on Nintendo games beforehand. Retro Studios is another Nintendo acquisition, becoming a subsidiary during development on Metroid Prime. That one’s cheating a little, but the point stands. There’s also Xenoblade developer Monolith Soft, which worked on Baten Kaitos long before it was a subsidiary.

Long story short, don’t expect Nintendo to buy Square Enix or something any time soon. And nobody is buying Konami, folks. It isn’t happening. 

 


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Lucas White
Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favs include Dragon Quest, SaGa and Mystery Dungeon. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas. Wanna send an email? Shoot it to [email protected].