EA Founder Predicts MS Purchase of Nintendo

New site Xbox2News.com (via Evil Avatar) has up an interview with Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts and recent AIAS inductee. During the course of the interview, he is asked what he sees as the future course for Nintendo. His answer? "My magic eight ball says they will be acquired by Microsoft within five years." Tycho has commentary on the man's forcasting abilities in today's post.

Comments

3DO

[Grond]

Tripp Hawkins was also the CEO of 3DO, and we all know how well that worked out. I'd say his credibility in terms of prediction was pretty much shot since he thought the 3DO would take over the world. As opposed to, you know, being a wildly overpriced system with a handful of lame, FMV-laden titles.

Re:3DO

[Craig Maloney]

Space hulk vengeance of the blood angles is a 3DO original,pc psx & saturn are ports.
Snowjob is a QTVR like game.
Killing Time had FMV in the intro and the ending.No FMV during the game.
Didn't know SpaceHulk was a 3DO original.
Killing Time had FMV spiced throughout the game as you completed levels and entered different rooms.

Actually I have a memory card and mpeg1 video adapter for the fz1 "two unused expansion ports"The modem,mpeg2 & M2 cards never materialized.
Ah, you're right... I forgot about the mpeg card. Never saw the memory card, though.

Other great games were Foes of Ali, Starblade (Excellent arcade port), and Braindead 13 (Better than the ports out there).

I blame Trip Hawkins for not being honest with what the role of the video game system was. I blame him for not being honest when the system was clearly outclassed, and the M2 was nowhere near production (M2: Coming soon!) I blame him for a SRP of $700, since the hardware manufacturers couldn't offset the price with software sales. I understand it was a rough time for video games, and the competition when the 3DO was released wasn't even up to par with what the 3DO could do, but thee model Trip used for the 3DO was understandably flawed.

Maybe I'm being too hard on ol' Trip, but he's still got a lot of ground to cover before I'll trust his predictions. He may have been the father of EA and 3DO, but I think some of that can be attributed to right-place-right-time.

Nintendo is not for Sale

[Aggrazel]

If Nintendo were unprofitable, I would think they could be for sale.

But they are not. They are VERY profitable. They have the BIGGEST franchizes in games. They have no reason to sell to Microsoft unless Microsoft offers ludicrous money.

Also, Nintendo isn't just video games. Pokemon anyone?

Anyway, I don't see Nintendo ever selling to anyone.

Re:Buy vs Rent

[GeckoX]

But you probably pronounced it correctly, in french ;)

Phonics at work my friend, phonics at work.

MSFT & Acquisitions

[afabbro]

Just as a general point of info...Microsoft has never done an acquisition of this size. Not even close.

Given their management's emphasis on employee culture, deciding to merge with an organization as large as Nintendo would be a real surprise.

Re:Magic 8 Ball...

[Psychochild]

Haha! Exactly. I'm a 3DO survivor and know exactly how well ol' Trip's Magic 8 Ball works.

(Side note, why not mention him as founder of 3DO instead of EA? It's more recent, and oh, yeah, out of business! :P)

Seriously, this is the man that for years said online gaming wasn't ready for prime time, that it wasn't profitable, etc, despite the obvious successes of online games. It sucked for me, because my team working on Meridian 59 got almost no resources since online games couldn't be profitable, according to Trip's Magic 8 Ball. So, it's not a surprise that it faded into oblivion only to be resurrected by a much smaller company that cares. And has made the game profitable with few resources.

Ah, well. Hopefully one day I'll have a fluke success so people will listen to me no matter how irrelevant I become.

Have fun,