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How Microsoft Tried To Buy Nintendo
An anonymous reader submits: "A new book, Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution discusses Microsoft's plans to buy Nintendo for $25 billion in late 1999. By January 2000 however, talks dissolved and each company went their seperate way. Makes you wonder how the home entertainment industry would be different if they had gone through with it. Stories are at Gamers and Cube Europe."
The rules changed once Microsoft was declared as a monopoly. We now have reason to believe that any buyout of Nintendo is simply a tactic for Microsoft to gain control of the gaming industry--not an attempt to improve this industry.
/.'ers is familiar with Microsoft definition of "better". "What's good for us is good for the industry."
Many of the buyouts in the past have been for failing companies. When a company as large as Microsoft throws $25 billion onto the table, we have reason to question their motives.
Nintendo has been a leading provider with their flagship N64, ever since the Nintendo, Game Boy, Super Nintendo and now the Game Cube. While the market share has shrunk considerably with the choice provided by Sony's Playstation, you cannot discredit the meaning of the Nintendo brand.
The fact that Microsoft can, financially, simply scoop up these companies--albeit in unexplored markets (before the X-Box came about) really scares me. To think that the home entertainment world would be exposed to BSODs in their very own living room sickens me to death. Next thing you know, Microsoft demands 2/3 rack space on gaming shelves and a 60%+ size increase of the advertised X-Box logo over competitors (Canadians will recognize this inadvertant reference to Quebec's language advertisement policies).
So, while major distributors of games still make a great deal of their income from non-Microsoft games and sales of products from other giants such as Sony, Microsoft is relatively powerless to dictate what gets sold and where (see: Microsoft's power over OEMs, links too numerous to mention).
So...
Linux and UNIX groupies like you give the community a bad name.
This has nothing to do with Linux or UNIX. This is the gaming entertainment industry and an oversized, broken oil tanker leaking its decrepid monopoly resources upon a growing industry. Stick your unrelated platform opinions elsewhere.
And what was wrong with trying to buy Nintedo?
As I said, this is no ordinary company trying to buy Nintendo. While Microsoft has produced numerous PC games, the console industry, prior to the X-Box, is uncharted by Microsoft. Their purchase of one of the leading brand figures, based upon their monopoly, is theoretically disastrous.
so the product will be even better?
Even the most innate of
Do you accuse Saturn to rip off Ford because they're making cars.
Pick your fight with someone else. Until you've actually been to the dealer and have been showered by the unexpected attention they pay to their customers, keep your keys out of the ignition and your trunk shut.