Topic: Should Nintendo start buying third party studios?

I thought of titling this topic 'should Nintendo buy third party studios to remain competitive?' but Nintendo has never (as far as I can tell) had the desire to be seen in the industry as the number one game video game company. Sure from the mid 80's until the 2000's Nintendo was number one by default due to there being little to no real competition other than Sega, until Sony came along

With the recent purchase of Activision/Blizzard by Microsoft and the very loose rumor of Sony looking at EA and Capcom as potential acquisitions, does Nintendo need to buy outside parties to secure a non first party library of titles for the future of their consoles? (Switch 2/switch pro/Nintendo Next I would say Nintendo NXT but WWE would probably sue lol)

@AppleroseGrace

Capcom said last year that PCs will be the main platform for their future video games, and that’s one of the reasons why Sony won’t buy Capcom. Capcom has a great collaboration with Nintendo and that is why I want Capcom to be independent because if Sony buys Capcom then their future video games will not come to Nintendo consoles.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/capcom-says-it-will-...

As for Nintendo, time will tell if it will be necessary to buy a studio, but I would like them to buy Sega. For now, they don't need to buy a new studio.

The only major video game company Nintendo or anyone should buy is Konami.

@kkslider5552000

That would be great because in that case Konami would be working on Sillent Hill again

I wouldn't mind Nintendo buying AlphaDream and bringing them back from the dead

To start the discussion I WIll answer my own question by saying ehhh maybe.

Sure it can be said that Nintendo has one of the deepest in house IP libraries of any of the big 4 console makers ( Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and Soulja.Boy . . . Lmao just kidding it's the big 3 Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft). Let's just look at the core IPs, the big N has Mario, Zelda, Splatoon, Kirby, Metroid, fire emblem, earthbound (maybe), advance wars, the series that has pyra/mythra, and others I am forgetting. Then look at the multitude of potential spin-off game genres that those core IPs could produce such as sports, RPG, adventure, platformer, puzzle, strategy, among others, we're looking at potentially hundreds of possible games to be on a future console.

Then we have to look earlier consoles (NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, GB, GBC, GBA, 3DS, DS, and even virtual boy) that had games that could be ported to a future console and that adds hundreds more possibilities of software to play.

So at first glance the answer would be no, but then you have to look at the question of 'how many times can you play the same game before it becomes too boring to buy again on the new console?' That question would lead one to say that Nintendo would need some sort of fresh IPs to put on a new console to entice the consumer to invest in Nintendo's newest fancy 500$ console over the PlayStation 6 or Microsoft Xbox series Omega.

Nintendo only seems to buy studios that have worked with them for a while (Next level games for example). If they buy any studios it'll likely be something like Intelligent Systems or HAL labs.

@Vortexeo

Nintendo should also buy Grezzo for the video game remakes

@Arceus yes Capcom has stated as you said that they wish to focus on the PC market in the future, but that doesn't exclude the possibility of Sony dropping say 100 billion in their laps and saying 'let us buy you and we will let you put idk say marvel vs Capcom ultimate on the PC and PlayStation 5 exclusively'.

Just because a company says on Monday we want to be independent, doesn't mean that on Wednesday they say we are part of the Sony family now after a bank deposit of a few billion dollars. Money can change anything, a butt ton of money changes everything.

I feel like Nintendo should buy Koei Tecmo. They have proven to be great developers, but the majority of their franchises sell poorly. Is Dead or Alive their biggest? The Warriors games seem barely profitable. Koei Tecmo could develop more Fire Emblem and Hack+Slash games.

@nitrolink I love koei tecmo games. They made one of my top 10 game franchises ever in 'Romance of three kingdoms' game series that was on PS1 and I believe it would sell well on switch.

@kkslider5552000 The problem with buying Konami is that I don't think they are internally setup to churn out 3 - 5 high quality games per year, so you're buying some possibly great IP, but you may then need to go and find more studios to develop games.

There would be some interesting possibilities though...PES on NSO? Dance Dance Revolution fits with that family/social game which could be almost annual? Bring back some classic platformers like Bonk and Adventure Island?

If Sony go in for them then maybe they should too...

If the rules in Japan loosen to allow foreign takeovers (which is rumoured) then maybe they should, but if that happens would Sega be the better option?

The worst case would be someone like Amazon or Meta (Facebook) buying them, so a purchase might be needed to protect their position.

I'll second that I would love for Nintendo to buy Tecmo Koei.

Dead or Alive on Nintendo platforms? Yes bloody please!

And it also gives us the Atelier, Fatal Frame/Project Zero, and Ninja Gaiden franchises too (which already have a presence on Switch).

But I can't imagine it being a particularly lucrative investment unless Nintendo can acquire them on the cheap, as most of their brands lack broad mainstream appeal.

Nah. Buying others companies is an unimaginative response to Microsoft, it’s like when the people down the road get a swimming pool or a new car so the other neighbours buy one too.

Nintendo hired a bunch of the old AlphaDream guys. If they did buy the company they’d just be buying their debts and the poor upper management that could not manage their debts.

I would say no, unless it's a smaller developer like, as someone suggested, HAL Labs, for the economy of having the studio in house. I think Nintendo would do better to expand from within, so it can create new IPs. Let's face it: Nintendo is the best developer. Why not just do more of what you already do?

Nintendo is comfortably positioned as a very successful alternative or complement to Microsoft and Sony. There's a little bit of mutual exclusivity there. And it has enough free cash to resist a buyout attempt. Why weaken itself financially by investing in a huge studio that might not even produce games attractive to a huge portion of the Nintendo audience?

hey I had another idea in mind: what if Nintendo bought Level 5?
They been struggling financially lately and their games sell better on Nintendo hardware anyway.

that's another one I've considered but I think its utterly embarrassing that Level 5 would be doing poorly financially. If they don't have tons and tons of extra money from Layton and Yokai Watch, then they should've spent that money on less stupid stuff.

This is a really interesting question. I am sure that no matter what Nintendo’s plans are, when Microsoft announced the intention to buy Activision Blizzard, there were meetings held at Nintendo though I’m sure nowhere near as many or urgent as Sony would have held. It won’t affect Nintendo is nearly the same amount as PlayStation but such a big purchase would definitely be something the higher ups at Nintendo would be discussing about to some degree.

Nintendo has said they are, I think, spending pretty close to $1 billion on expanding their teams. I don’t know over how long that money will be spend to increase team sizes but they did say they don’t plan to make any acquisitions. However that was before Microsoft’s announcement.

Does Nintendo need to buy any developers or publishers? Not really. But personally there’s a couple I think they could look into buying.

Platinum Games has a good working relationship with Nintendo as it is and under Nintendo’s ownership could be used to bolster some more mature games on a much more regular basis. Buy up the Bayonetta IP too.

The other name that sprang to mind would require a lot of money and I doubt would ever happen but Nintendo does have a small percentage ownership in Bandai Nanci and they do either help or outright produce a fair amount for Nintendo already. Plus don’t they have a toy division? Could always use that to officially create merchandise.

@FragRed you raise some salient points that do make sense. Namely, the meetings that must have taken place at Sony and Nintendo when the Microsoft acquisition of Activision was announced/leaked.

Now knowing how Nintendo is a Japanese company first and rest of the world second as compared to Sony/Microsoft being US companies first and rest of world second I don't believe Nintendo had spur of the moment panicked meetings when the Activision story broke as Sony possibly did, the Japanese culture is different from our American one. Nintendo would be far more relaxed and observant and measured in their response.

I do love all the replies so far and they are wonderful to read and think upon.

That being said, I'd like to clarify the question I asked in title if post. I asked if Nintendo should buy a third party publisher, not which ones should be bought if any are bought.

Again I truly love reading each and every post and reply you fine people contribute thus far and keep them coming.