head Phil Spencer might have been correct when he wrote, in a piece of corporate cringe straight out ofSpencer’s dream of buying the venerable Japanese firm was revealed, alongside other confidential plans, in an accidental leak of e-mails related to Microsoft’s videogame operations recently uploaded to a US federal court website. The e-mail concerning Nintendo is dated 2020; Microsoft has acknowledged the leaked documents but says “much has changed” since they were written.
What hasn’t changed is Nintendo’s undoubted attractiveness as an asset. Even after Microsoft completes the US$69-billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it could no doubt afford the purchase. But even if Spencer somehow convinced Nintendo’s board to agree, and assuming such a deal cleared antitrust regulators, it’s hard to conclude it would be, as he wrote, “a good move for both companies”.Indeed, it’s tricky to imagine a greater clash of cultures.
Spencer notes that the Nintendo board “until recently has not pushed for further increases in market growth or stock appreciation”, something that, to the despair of frustrated Nintendo bulls, is true. The videogame maker stubbornly marches to the beat of its own drum; shareholders are just one consideration.It’s “taking a long time for Nintendo to see that their future exists off their own hardware”, Spencer also wrote.
Microsoft disagrees. It’s less concerned about hardware, and sees the future of gaming on the cloud. Gamers can play, for example, Minecraft, the franchise it acquired in 2014, on Xbox, PC, mobile or even Switch. Most likely, the source of Microsoft’s interest would be Nintendo’s intellectual property: Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong and the host of other franchises.