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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."
If Microsoft really wanted to be immediately successful in the console market, they should've bought Sega late last year. The Dreamcast was a great system, and with the Microsoft marketing machine behind it and a potential sequel, there would be almost guaranteed success. Plus, Sega could be bought for a whole lot less money (especially now).
But it would be ironic, because the bastard child spawn from such a deal would run on the PPC chip :)
Now when your gamecube crashes, there is no blue screen of death, just Maro popping up saying "Mama-mea, iv'e crashed AGAIN"
MSNES
The way I see the situation, Nintendo probably tried to pull something similar to what MS did back when they entered the mouse market. (MS got into negotiations with Logitech, learned all about their manufacturing process, then broke off talks) Nintendo probably just saw the opportunity to learn a lot about their competition, and entertained MS just enough to get all the info they could from them. Once they did they, they broke off talks. Nintendo is so set on their business model that they won't try anything new. Nintendo of America would love to be more aggressive against Sony, but they have to answer to the Japan branch, who is quite content where they are because they make a hell of a lot more money than the games branch of Sony does. If it's not broken, don't fix it is pretty much their motto, so why would they ever even considering selling out to MS ?
Super Mario Bros: "Hey, kids, itsa Mario! I wanna taka some time from da game, to tell you about the dangers of competition in da OS market. If da 9 US states of Bowser have their way, competition will enter da OS market and Yoshi willa die! Mama Mia!"
Pokemon: "Picachoo just evolved into the most stable, user friendly, Pokemon ever: XPachoo!"
Legend of Zelda: "Link, Hyrule can only be saved from the evil free office suite spread by Ganon by gathering the three pieces of Mircosoft Office to form the triad!"
... and I forgot to add that the last point there only serves to exemplify the issue that nearly all of Win2k's and WinXP's "innovations" have actually been done before, either in *NIX-land or other software. (And usually better.)
..this would only have helped put MS ahead in the game. Outside of North America, XBox sales are weak (to say the least). It goes to reason, however, that with the Nintendo name behind the console (including the good hardware/game engineering that goes into Nintendo products) that the Japanese and European markets would have taken MS' offering a little more seriously.
The fact that the initial code name was Project Midway -- they don't want the Japanese people to know that because it will hurt their feelings."
Well, it could have been worse. Project Hiroshima anyone? It will obliterate the competition!
.. and you forget to put your foot in your mouth when you wrote this. Come on, of course Microsoft has copied Unix. How could they not!!! Do you accuse Saturn to rip off Ford because they're making cars. Ford has been there for a hundred years! You're right, Saturn are dirty bastards for trying to make a clone or a different version of car.
Linux and UNIX groupies like you give the community a bad name.
And what was wrong with trying to buy Nintedo? It's not only a question on buying to beat everyone. This is a pretty normal move in the industry. If you have some ideas, but don't have all the expertise to go forward with them, why don't you make a alliance with another company, or buy the other company and integrate it with yours, so the product will be even better?
www.cube-europe.com/news/10198973416591.html
This sound bite is the best:
When interviewing Nintendo's U.S president Minoru Arakawa, he let slip that Nintendo 'weren't sure what to think when Microsoft made the offer.'' He continued with the commments "I was surprised, we didn't need the money. I thought it was a joke."
sums it up nicely for me
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Enix.
You've heard of them, right? They put out that little Dragon Quest/Warrior series, the seventh of which is the all-time best selling game in Japan. Heck, there's even a Japanese law saying that Enix can only release a new DQ game on a weekend, because otherwise millions of kids/adults will skip school/work just to get their hands on it ASAP and play it all day.
Even the mere announcement that the next Dragon Quest game will be an Xbox exclusive would guarantee the console's success in Japan. It's like Japanese gamers wouldn't have a choice in the matter. They'd need Dragon Quest 8, and thus they would need an Xbox, no matter what.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
If MS had bought Nintendo then Pikachu could be an MS Office Assistent.
THAT would be cool.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
According to the artivle, the Xbox project was originally called project Midway????
They have got to be kidding, naming a project after the naval battle in WWII that turned the tide in the Pacific. Thus, in MS' mind, they are "at war" with the Japanese over the game console industry and hope to "turn the tide" with the Xbox.
How utterly distatsteful to people who gave their lives in such battles, and how *especially* disgusting and disrespectful that must be to the Japanese.
I am dumbfounded. How about Toyota calling the next Camry project Pearl Harbor.
Microsoft continually amazes and disgusts me beyond belief.
Thank God this deal didn't go through. The combined evil of Microsoft and Nintendo would have reached critical mass, collapsed inward on itself and formed a black hole that would surely have destroyed us all.
Years ago, after reading about all the shifty crap that Nintendo pulled in this book, I started thinking of them as the Microsoft of Japan. Price fixing, exclusivity deals with retailers to lock out competitors, the lockout chip feature in their carts, lots of different stuff. Nintendo and Microsoft already have a lot of similar pages in their respective playbooks.
Microsoft was probably salivating at the thought of having a viselike grip on people's lives from the time they fire up their first video game as a kid, until the final time they turn off their PC before going on to die in their sleep later that night. Luckily for us, the X-Box is proving to be an also-ran, so we won't have to worry about it.
~Philly
Can you see it now?
.NET empire, while the courts are paid off with funding from Yoshi's magic mushroom factory.
First, Mario kills Luigi, who is unnecessary competition. Of course, he has nothing to fear from Bowser: his employer has proprietary rights to hellfire. Soon the Kuppas will be building Mario's
Pioneered my ass. It plainly said in the Netscape executable that the report-bugs-back-to-netscape technology was licensed from some other company. (This is to say nothing of the shitload of licensed technology in Netscape)
Welcome to the real world, where software engineering decisions involve deciding whether buying technology is a more soft effective idea than producing technology.
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
If I could buy Nintendo I would, but I can't afford it, so instead I'll sell myself to MS for $25 billion. Unless someone else have an interesting offer?
When entering a new market it is always easier to buy another company (if you can afford it) rather than try to force your way in there. When you buy another company you get consumer base, brandnames expertise etc.
rights to Pac-Man from Namco (a Japanese company)? I always thought their name was based
on the notion of a carnival Midway; I suspect that Namco's executives, if they even thought about
it, either shared that idea, or didn't care so long as they got paid.
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I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
Ninetendo wanted to learn from Microsoft about making console games and systems. Because Ninetendo lacks experience in that field you know.
Unless Ninetendo needed urgent information on how to make a bussiness plane or a golf simulator, i would suggest you have it backwards.
He's the Steven Spielberg of video games
:)
Hardly high praise in my book. I'd rather buy games by the Orson Welles or Robert Altman of video games (any ideas?
deus does not exist but if he does
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I think Microsoft will never be a big player in the videogame industry, regardless of how much money they pour into it.
They need to dominate both the American and Japanese markets to stand a chance.
Here are some of the things that will stop them:
- Most important video game developers are Japanese. Those companies have strong relationships with Sony and/or Nintendo. You simply can't buy your way into a closed industry in Japan. I know, I work there.
- Culture clash. Japanese gamers don't like the Xbox. It's big, ugly and all the exclusive games are very American.
- Microsoft has absolutely no way to force anyone to buy an Xbox. Their Windows/Office tactics don't apply here.
- MS actually looses money on each Xbox they sell. If they don't have a big market share a couple years from now (and they wont), they will NOT keep trying. Not even M$ can afford to do this.
If I was Microsoft, I would make Xbox2 run PC games directly. No porting needed whatsoever.
Cheers.
http://download.theforce.net/theater/shortfilms/co nsolewars/cwpart1.swf
Intresting note, the woman who lead BOB's development whent on to marry bill gates. Now she's in charge of billions of dolars to help starving africans and stuff.
I don't know something about that just seems wrong some how...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Not really. General Motors and Ford both own significant shares in Japanese car companies.
It's that neverending recession of theirs. Despite the insistences on both sides that Japanese companies are just that more efficient and successful than American ones, the Japanese recession is already over a decade old.
If I owned Nintendo, I would have definitely cashed out; they're just not worth 25 billion, and a lot of their money is from the Pokemon franchise (and the chances are very slim that they'll get a new fad to match that anytime soon).
You know, I'm Jewish and I keep hearing about this whole worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Apparently I'm not entered in their records correctly - could someone tell me who I need to write to so I can get my monthly check and my "How to manipulate the media" packet?
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Believe it or not, Nintendo is that big. They make more than twice as much in revenues in the game industry as anyone else and they have a lot of valuable intellectual properties.
Microsoft was probably salivating at the thought of having a viselike grip on people's lives from the time they fire up their first video game as a kid, until the final time they turn off their PC before going on to die in their sleep later that night.
:P (just look at their reaction to the emulation scene)
hahah, that's some desturbing images there... the final time they turn off their PC and go to bed at night to die...
Anyway, I don't think David Sheff painted Nintendo as totaly evil, although they kind of are
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Since we like netscape, mere technical details such as the one you mention are selectively forgotten.
Please don't move our cheese!
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
Yes, well these "x actually did y before z even thought of it" wars are quite common here, unfortunately, and I won't be dragged into one now.
Get over. Innovation is the art of bringing advancements to the populace. Unix has its fair share, and so has Microsoft.
I wouldn't be so perturbed if MS would at least acknowledge that many the features at hand existed before MS was even a company. (Let alone actually give credit.) They spin them off as being Yet Another Pioneering Microsoft Innovation.
Come on, of course Microsoft has copied Unix. How could they not!!!
My problem with MS is not so much that they borrow many of their ideas (and even code) from other operating systems, rather that they do so and then proceed to spin it off as Yet Another Microsoft Innovation.
Considering their (now) very public anti-Unix stance, you'd think they wouldn't have anything to do with Unix. At all. But to this day, we keep seeing MS announcing New and Incredible Features and ideas that were either pioneered or made mainstream by Unix and other operating systems that have been around for decades. They even go so far as to "borrow" code (I think the Win2k/XP TCP/IP stack, not sure) from BSD and then spout about all the evilness that Unix must be.
Linux and UNIX groupies like you give the community a bad name.
I use Linux (and other unices or clones) because it suits me. Unix works for what I want it to do, and it works well. That makes me a groupie, eh? Might want to rethink that
I'm typing this in Windows XP right now, so obviously I must not have too much of a problem with Microsoft's products themselves. What I do disagree with is their actions as a corporation. There is so much potential for Microsoft to be an asset to the computing industry it's not funny, but so far, like every other major American corporation, they are consumed with greed. For both money and mindshare.
Err..
Windows Media Audio
and
Windows Media Video.
From the Merriam-Webster OnLine Dictionary:
intransitive senses : to act as a pioneer
transitive senses
1 : to open or prepare for others to follow; also : SETTLE
I never said anywhere that I thought Netscape developed the full-circle reporting technology themselves. My definition coincides with the one pasted above. That they brought auto bug-reporting technology to the mainstream, just as a lot of Unix features and programs were never developed *for* Unix, but made their name because they were introduced into one form of Unix or another.
Welcome to the real world, where the unwashed masses can't see a monopoly and illegal or immoral business procedures even when it makes front-page news.
The desktop OS (and possibly desktop computer) as we know it is doomed. Or very likely to be doomed. If the desktop computer remains roughly the same as it is today, it is likely to be overran by commodity operating systems (just as the hardware became largely a commodity market). But more likely the desktop computer will change in drastic ways sometime in the future (leaving techheads like us with a niche market of commodity hardware and software).
One way or another, Microsoft's current market will change. To maintain their business, Microsoft must also change. The trouble is, technology rarely broadcasts the next Big Thing. So that leaves Microsoft and every other tech pundit guessing.
But any good pundit knows how to play the odds. The strategy is to figure out what the possibilities are and cover those bases. Hedge the bets. If you can afford it.
Microsoft acts on the their guesses for future markets. Set-top boxes. PVRs. Web-based services. PDAs. Webpads. And in the Xbox... a game console (with considerably more potential than just console gaming).
If these initiatives do not provide great return, or actually loose in the market place... well, that is a luxury Microsoft can afford. They must not allow the next industry boom abandon them to being a footnote in IT industry history. They are hedging their bets.
I've not read the Xbox book, but if you liked Game Over, two others to try are Revolutionaries at Sony, which is about the Playstation, and Renegades Against The Empire, which is the story of DirectX.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
If I was Microsoft, I would make Xbox2 run PC games directly. No porting needed whatsoever.
I've always wondered why there's a relativly big HD in the Xbox. Not for the stupid music options, surely. And it's way too big to save games.
The HD would make sens if a future OS upgrade would make playing PC-games possible. Cause you need a HD to install those games on.
UNIX was around long before the first VAX.
The point to Multics was security.
UNIX is software. VAX is hardware. I'm not at all sure how it could be possible for software to "borrow tons" from hardware.
The only things that UNIX stole from multics was users.
Might be more accurate so say that UNIX stole some excellent developers.
IIRC the only users that were stolen were the creators of UNIX.
Actually, thats not quite correct. To be a great success in the Console market, they could do so without Japan as long as they get a majority of the market in Europe as well as the US.
Japan would be a great help for microsoft, but the culture clash would probably kill them there, as it may already be in the process of doing. Microsoft gravitates towards pleasing the majority, and likes to stay Mainstream. In Japan, there is a greater tolerance for Niche markets. After all, could you picture Microsoft getting behind a game where you are a mosquito in a girl's room, and your trying to bite her without being swatted? Such a game already exists in Japan.
But in Europe, the strategy of sticking to the mainstream will be much more successful. The culture clash will be reduced. All Microsoft has to do to win a good market share in Europe is make sure that the big name titles are released very close to the US release date. If the newest titles arrive on the X-Box 2 months before they arrive on the PS2 or the GameCube, they will win that market. And all that would need to be done to insure that is guarantee that all the "Big" titles are devoloped with the French, German, Spanish, Portugese, Sweedish, and other major languages kept in mind from day one.
END COMMUNICATION
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Hmm, Alexy Pajitnov would be the Orson Welles of video games (one great game, Tetris, but then what?). Hideo Kojima is the Kubrick of video games (technically excellent, but good luck making sense of it). Hironobu Sakaguchi might be the James Cameron of video games (epics with lots of action with a sappy love story, every time).
If you're looking for art, check out ICO for Playstation2, whoever designed that is the Tarkovsky of video games.
I'm at fault for sterotyping you as well, it's just that I'm starting to tire of the slashdot community as a whole. That's where the "elitist" remark came from. I'm not going to make a big fuss about it here, but from the way things get moderated these days, I'm starting to think there is some kind of Mainstram Slashdot Collective Mind(tm) at work against anyone with a differing opinion, or anyone who voices obvious but unpopular statements of fact.
But worst yet, I'm fear I'm getting sucked into it as well.
Besides, despite what I said, I could tell you weren't that bad a guy from your sig.
Somehow I think VMS would have troubles running on a PDP
64K should be enough for anybody, espectially if that's 64k data AND 64k program space.
Need more be said?
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Remember, business is war. Telling stories like this makes people like you think they know what's going on."
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