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Cisco Eyeing Tivo/Nintendo for Buyout?
We've already covered Cisco's push into the home electronics market, but CNet is reporting that they may be planning even bigger purchases to come. The article speculates that Cisco may be planning on purchasing Tivo or Nintendo to add to their growing portfolio of companies. From the article: " Another possible acquisition candidate for Cisco is Nintendo, the No. 3 game console maker in the U.S. A stretch? Not really. Microsoft, which is emerging as a key competitor to Cisco in the home entertainment market, is already in this market with the Xbox 360. Gaming has already proved to be a strong application for broadband, so it makes sense that Cisco would want to own a game device to help drive more traffic on its network. With its popular GameBoy product, Nintendo would also provide Cisco an entree into the mobile-handheld market." Some commentary at GameDailyBiz, which finds it unlikely that Nintendo would sell to Cisco.
MS has wanted to buy Nintendo since before the Xbox. Gates has said numerous times that if Nintendo were up for a buyout, MS would be the first to put up the cash for it. Of course, Nintendo has kept saying they're not for sale.
Cisco can want to buy Nintendo, but I think they're up against the same thing that MS is, Nintendo doesn't want to sell to anyone.
Who is seriously stupid enough to believe, much less report, that Nintendo would be selling out to an American company? Microsoft already tried this, and Ballmer got quite a response from Hiroshi Yamauchi, the 77 year old ex-Nintendo president. To make his feelings blatantly obvious, he stood on a chair, cupped his hands over his mouth, and suggested the following:
"Hey, Ballmer, why don't you suck my tiny yellow balls?"
He even said it in plain English, after having an interpreter for the rest of the conversation, for added clarity. He also likened the acceptance of such a deal to "a defeat comparable to World War 2" despite the fact that M$ offered what Yamauchi-san described as the largest sum of money he'd ever heard of. I highly doubt that Cisco's chances would be any better.
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