Nintendo President Says Future Acquisitions Driven By 'Tech Innovation' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 October 2021 / 2,533 Views
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa in an earnings call with investors via Nikkei discussed the plans for Nintendo's ¥1 trillion ($9.2 billion) it has in its war chest. He did say future acquisitions will be driven by technology innovations.
"We need to secure cash reserves to ensure financial stability, but if we need to respond to rapidly advancing technological innovation, we may acquire companies that possess the technology," said Furukawa in the call, which was translated by VideoGamesChronicle.
Furukawa said in February Nintendo is not going to "blindly" acquire studios because it won't necessarily improve the value that Nintendo provides.
"We are not just blindly acquiring companies because we want development resources," he said at the time. "We don’t think that simply expanding the scale of our business will really improve the value of the entertainment that Nintendo provides."
Nintendo in January did acquire developer Next Level Games in January. It is a studio that Nintendo has worked with for many years as the studio developed Luigi’s Mansion 3 for the Nintendo Switch, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon and Metroid Prime: Federation Force for the Nintendo 3DS, Mario Strikers Charged and Punch-Out!! for the Wii, and Super Mario Strikers for the GameCube.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I hope they mean Hardware companies too.
A little difficult to fit something with Nintendo.
Perhaps some independent developers of great talent?
Supergiant Games, Team Cherry, Yacht Club Games are names that come to mind, and their games match the typical "nostalgia" and "old-school" nintendo games ... but they add 0 to "technology".
Perhaps game production is secondary ... it would make sense to invest in some technology company, especially connected to Cloud / services (let's face it, this is Nintendo's weakest point, they are way behind the competition in this area.)
Like I said below, Koei Tecmo is a great fit for Nintendo and has been working directly with Nintendo for years, They even helped on the development of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and the best selling game they ever made was Age of Calamity.
Sounds like a shot at MS if you ask me.
It is a shot at MS. They are basically saying "We aren't going to start acquiring developers left and right, because we aren't some talentless company that can't put a single good game together outside of our three stale flagship IPs."
@cerebral hate to break it to you but those companies are not run by fanboys, its a business. Seems your bias is making you see things that are not there.
Companies dont talk to other companies with fanboy sentences like "we arent some talentless company" hinting at a competitor especally since Nintendo and MS are in buisness together.
Good thing if they buy companies to help them with tech, both software and hardware can scale up if a specific know how, I can see Nintendo buying companies to make good use of AR technology or other peripherals.
I don't like the predatory business models where major manufacturers and software companies buy studios for the sake of owning their IPs, it just further reduces competition and creates a big oligopoly
Buy the Banjo ip back from Rare/Microsoft...they aren't using it.
Errr, what? Banjo Kazooie was created by the Mayles brothers, and has always belonged to Rare. Gregg still works for Rare as the Creative Director, Steve works at Playtonic as one of the Yooka-Laylee creators. What would be the point of Nintendo buying someone elses creation? Nintendo has plenty of their own, and are quite capable of creating others without jacking other peoples' IP.
They way I wrote that I was about as serious as people in the past saying Sony should buy Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania ips form Konami. I now Nintendo isn't buying Banjo just like others know Sony isn't buying Castlevania . That being said I do want to see another Banjo and would love to see Microsoft either make it or let Playtonic make it for them.
There is more of a chance that MS will let someone else make it for them
They need to buy Koei Tecmo. They’re practically a second party now and it would add Ninja Gaidsn, Atelier, and Koei’s historical games to Nintendo’s portfolio.
That wouldn't do anything for them. Nintendo already has Ninja Gaiden, Atelier and Koei games on the Switch. Buying up 3rd party developers, that already make games for you, for the sole purpose of keeping those games off other systems is stupid.
I actually agree with you. I hate Microsoft because that is what they do. They also did it during the 360 era, to the detriment of the industry as a whole. Microsoft tried to buy their way into Japan, with the result that the companies that threw in with them lost a lot of money on Microsoft while the 360 still bombed worse in Japan than the Saturn did in the United States. All it did was cock-block Sony. As long as Microsoft is in the video game industry, that danger will always exist, and the only way for Sony and Nintendo to fight back would be to buy up companies and IPs to keep them away from Microsoft. And Sony itself is another problem for Nintendo, If Sony buys Square Enix, that means Nintendo loses Dragon Quest forever. If either company buys Capcom, no more Monster Hunter for Nintendo. Like it or not, if Microsoft keeps up on a buying spree like they did with Bethesda, Sony and Nintendo may have little choice but to follow suit, just to keep content on their platforms.
Nobody is going to buy Square Enix or Capcom.
All it takes is one bad quarter for companies to start looking for a buyer. Just a few short years ago, one of the biggest headlines was that Capcom had very little money in the bank, and that Sony had financed the development of Street Fighter V. Capcom turned the ship around thanks to Monster Hunter and Resident Evil and is in very healthy shape, but back then they were ripe for a buyer.
Yeah, Sega went from complete success with the Genesis to bankruptcy in 2001. This market is pretty volatile.
Yep. Microsoft purchasing Bethesda could wind up sparking an acquisition war that sees a ton of 3rd party multiplats become exclusive. Xbox and PC fanboys will continue to cheer acquisitions on though, because MS will put those games on PC and Mobile. Microsoft's current strategy is akin to railroad tycoons buying up all the iron mines in order to keep competitors from making new railway tracks.
