Why Nintendo Rarely Buys Developers

We also have to consider the fact Nintendo is the only pure gaming company, the other two are conglomerate with several revenue streams leading to deeper pockets and much higher risk tolerance. What Nintendo is able to do as a tiny company is just incredible! Wanna how big the others are simply in terms of employee count? Nintendo - 6,574 (Source: CSR - 2021) Microsoft - 181,000 (Source: MS Website - 2021) Sony - 114,400 (Source: Corporate Report - 2019)

Author — That Other Guy

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Acquisition is something common to western companies. Japanese companies tend to prefer collaboration. There are some exceptions though.

Author — sts

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Thing is that most developers would jump at the chance work on a Nintendo IP, given how much weight their games carry. So they don’t need to buy other studios.

Author — toaker

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I imagine it’s likely that Nintendo has a “right of first refusal” contract with some of these companies, so that if Sony offered to buy Intelligent Systems for example, Nintendo could block the sale by buying IS at market cap.

Author — AceETP

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I wish more companies operated this way: Owning IPs people care about and working with separate studios to bring them to life in new ways.

Author — Devon Dodson

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I definitely appreciate Nintendo taking a more hands off approach to buying studios and simply collaborating with them to make new games. The only one that was truly a missed opportunity was Rare. They really should have swooped in and bought them before Microsoft did, especially after all they did for the N64. Sure, their output may not have been the best on Xbox--but that was probably due to them having to cancel projects that could only have worked with the Nintendo IP.

Author — Jeremy Cole

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