Microsoft Once Had Some Pretty Wild Ideas, Including Making Xbox Free And Buying Nintendo

Typical Microsoft. If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em. Rare, Mojang, you name it.
Ok Ok, I'm being harsh. EA is the true champion when it comes to that.

If Microsoft had bought Nintendo, we all know what would have become of the IPs... Just look at Rare. All the great developers would have walked out almost immediately and Nintendo would have become nothing more than... er... nothing.

Bwa HA HA HA HA HA!

Microsoft has to buy everything. -_-

It probably would've worked if they hadn't gotten too big for their britches. They can't even get operating systems down pat yet, and from the looks of things, they're going to consolidate their gaming specialization into software exclusively. In other words, they will indeed become the next Sega, like I've been saying for awhile.

Mmmm Nintendo games on my xb1... a man can dream

"Name a bad idea and it was something we had to deal with"

This is how Microsoft fuctions? Oh my god this explains so much.

Unlike Nintendo who has a lot of bad ideas... and then follows thru on them

Microsoft buying Sega may actually have made sense at the time. Xbox had a great initial push of Japanese support, mostly from former Sega partners and affiliates. Itagaki was probably the most notable advocate of the box.

Of course, they did still try. They bought Rare solely because they mistakenly thought that they would get the rights to Donkey Kong from it. Therefore, Nintendo would have had to fork over massive royalties if they ever wanted to do another Mario Kart, another Super Smash Bros., or anything with some pretty major parts of their back catalogue.

It's a good thing that they were wrong.

I think wild ideas is an understatement.

they'd need to shell out more than what they paid for mojang in order to buy Nintendo.

@CaviarMeths

Agree with you that Microsoft buying SEGA would have made sense after the Dreamcast OS support and the exclusivity deal......., I think half of my time on the orginal Xbox was playing SEGA exclusives (Shenmue 2, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crazy Taxi 3, House of the Dead 3, etc. )

I hope someday, Microsoft won't be able to buy any more developers. We don't need another Rare situation.

Yeah...no.

microsoft cant just buy nintendo xD its much harder then that

@EternalDragonX I'd quit gaming if MS ever bought Nintendo, they've already destroyed Rare.

Microsoft really wanted to do that? It not like they can actually buy them, Microsoft is stupid enough to do that and that saying something. Well, if you can't beat em' buy em' XD.

Wasn't Microsoft's well-known founder Bill Gates actually once serious about purchasing Nintendo a few years after the original Xbox was released?

@A01 I thought they bought RARE because of all the great non-Donkey Kong games they made and wanted a piece, and either sucked the magic from RARE or saved Nintendo from enduring a bad run of games because I haven't enjoyed a RARE game since Banjo-Tooie.

Nintendo Life also once covered that Microsoft thought they acquired the Donkey Kong IP alongside their acquisition of Rare.

Wait, Microsoft thought XBox was going to be a casual gamer's machine?! In that case it seems a little odd that the original system's aesthetic design had a dark, "hardcore" vibe to it, from the casing to the system menus. But it's not like Microsoft knows their audience most of the time.

As for XBox potentially having been a free console, that's an interesting one. They would have had to push a lot more effort into software sales to make that profitable, and there's the problem of somebody taking one and not buying any games, or taking multiple XBoxes.

hmp,funny

"At the time, Xbox thought that the core market was going to be casual"

Looking at the amount of copies COD sells on their platform... hey, they were right!

[looks at Rareware]

[realizes what would have happened if Microsoft bought Nintendo]

Well, I wasn't going to get any sleep tonight anyway.

@CanisWolfred
Just made my day. Before the April 1st Nintendo Direct even aired, to boot!

@ToastyYogurt "the original system's aesthetic design had a dark, "hardcore" vibe to it, from the casing to the system menus" because they must have decided that AFTER considering this plan was a no-go.

I work at Microsoft. People here have so many terrible, misguided ideas it's not funny. Xbox is one of the more sensical ones but even they've managed to turn the second-greatest developer on the N64 into something that's literally worthless except for its IP. They should sell the rights to Banjo-Kazooie back to Nintendo. Not like they're doing anything with them. And please, no casual BK game at this year's E3...........

@FragRed yeah, we know what would have happened: absolutely nothing different from what it is right now. Rare is Rare, they have always been Rare, they are where they are out of their own choice and anyone with any understanding of how the industry runs and what has been going on there knows this. Rare has had a lot of freedom since they were bought by Microsoft, in fact according to many current and former employees, they have perhaps had too much freedom, and certainly more freedom and support than they ever had with Nintendo.

@Searanae Back when Microsoft bought Rare, Nintendo made sure to give them all of Rare's IPs that weren't tied to an already established Nintendo franchise, so it really was a case of Nintendo not wanting them.

Nuts and Bolts was a great game by any standards (except the 3D Platformer Collect-a-thon standards, but it would be very stupid to judge it by those standards since it isn't that kind of game), and the Kazooie and Tooie remakes were fantastic so I don't think you even know what you are talking about there buddy.

@DGGames LOL. The textures were literally exactly the same from the original. What improvements are you talking about? Making the Ice Key work? Changing the Nintendo logo to a Microsoft logo? Not having to re-collect notes isn't exactly a game changer.

@BaffleBlend That is, in fact, very wrong. Microsoft never thought, or intended, to get Donkey Kong by buying Rare. A single guy from Microsoft, during their first visit to Rare, thought his company now owned Rare. See the difference there?

As to why they bought Rare, it was probably for the talent and legacy more so than the IPs, seeing how Nintendo used to own the IPs as well, and they gave them back to Rare during the buyout...

@Interneto Doesn't sound like that. It sounds like they didn't realize who their biggest audience would be until after the console shipped.

So glad that never happened

@DGGames
There were also reports that Microsoft initially tried to allow them a similar environment they had with Nintendo, but still meddled too much, especially with Nuts 'N bolts. One of the reasons it became a kart racing game was someone from Microsoft claimed "nobody wants platformers anymore" and kept pushing them to change things here and there until it no longer resembled their original vision.

In-fact, I believe Nintendo Life did an interview with a few ex-Rareware employees who said they think if Microsoft hadn't bought the company most of the people who left probably would have stayed.

Are they a lot more free now? Perhaps, but it definitely wasn't the case at first.

Even if they had tried to buy Nintendo, why in the world would Nintendo have sold out to a Western company with no experience in video game consoles at the time?

@ricklongo Amen

@Zombie_Barioth The people that made the decisions on Nuts n Bolts are the ones that are at Playtonic now. Have you read any of the interviews with the Nuts n Bolts team at the time? As they worked on a new Banjo-Kazooie, they did the same thing they did in Tooie: take the previous game as a base, and make everything bigger. Eventually the worlds were too big to traverse on foot, and they had this cool other mechanic they had been developing for custom-made vehicles, plus the experience from Donkey Kong Racing / Banjo-Kazoomie / The Fast and the Furriest so it all came together into what we now know as Nuts n Bolts. Sure it's easy to try to blame Microsoft since it seems hating on them is the cool thing to do nowadays, but if anything Microsoft's fault is not being involved enough (probably due to lacking the experience to lead this kind of games).

I mean, after all, Rare is the same company that back in the 90s made a trilogy of games based on shiny new but otherwise unproven technology at the end of the life cycle of a console generation for no other reason than they had this cool new tech around and they wanted to play with it, and most recently they went on to create yet another trilogy of games based on shiny new but otherwise unproven technology at the end of the life cycle of a console generation (With the final game bleeding over to the next generation). If you didn't catch it, that would be the Donkey Kong Country series and the Kinect Sports series, both based on the "ooh, shiny! Let's see what we can do with this" approach. Both incredibly fun games and otherwise completely separate set of games. I assure you had they been a part of Nintendo at this point, they would have been leading the Wii Remote Waggle-fest race, and being one of the first (and last) releases using exclusively the MotionPlus.

@Searanae Did you play the remakes? Did you experience the Stop n Swop functionality or the slight tweaks in game play to make for a more polished experience? If not, go play them, and then try to say they are anything short of fantastic.

Free Xbox? Hmm, well, that's the closest Microsoft's ever gotten to a price point their consoles deserve.

I would have brought an Xbox if it were free, heck I would have brought 10!

I thought this was going to be an April fools day article for a moment there.

Microsoft even considering trying to buy-off Nintendo, or even Sega creeps me out... I know it won't happen anytime soon, but yeesh...

Also, as stated already look what happened to Rare.

Rare had stopped being Rare way before the Microsoft purchase. A lot of talent had already left to form Free Radical, and most people would agree Rare didn't make anything great after the 64 era. They were putting a lot of energy into finding a buyer back in the N64 days, and a deal with Activision almost went through a couple of years before the Microsoft one.

Yes, MS didn't handle the IPs as well as they could, but I don't know how anyone can look at the tineline of staff leaving and say MS ruined Rare. Heck, they put a lot of effort into helping the studio create new IP while Nintendo would have probably pushed for sequels of existing IP. Just look at how they forced Star Fox into Dinosaur Planet and damaged the game as a result.

@DGGames
Yeah, I remember hearing about that. They kept adding things until they realized the game's world was too big. I believe the kart idea actually come from a past idea to include a vehicle of some kind in Banjoe Tooie, but the initial suggestion might not have been from them.

I doubt everybody was happy with the changes though, that's the thing, how everything went down will change depending on who you talk to. I'm pretty sure the main reason most if not all of the remaining original staff left was Microsoft's inexperience. They tried to give them plenty of freedom, but the overall corporate structure didn't work, their freedom was still confined by Microsoft's rigid structure.

They're not the same company anymore the 'new' guys are probably plenty talented, but those accomplishments belong to the old staff.

A lot of people think Rare died with the Microsoft purchase, but I think Rare still made some good games on Microsoft Consoles. I mean, I loved Kameo and Viva Pinata as a kid. It's a shame that they've become 'that company that makes all the Kinect games'.

I'm so glad that never happened. I reckon it would of had a major affect on the games market.

All in all, microsoft was just starting to go into the game business, and they were excited, so they used a lot of bull to help gain support for their machine. Sega did release some great games on it (Toe Jam and Earl 3, Shenmue 2, Crazy Taxi 3)...even though all of those were announced for the Dreamcast before it died. Rare even had a few good titles, but Rare passed after the fact that their kiddie games were knocked into the dust. Rare was always a highlight for nintendo platforms...because they were beautiful games for nintendo. Rare is small now, but maybe nintendo can buy some of those people back...help them out for their next console. Other than that, just like what Wii-1 mentioned, Rare died the second nintendo stopped holding their hands.

@Smashy_Link Agreed. I liked the VIVA PINATA games too, never got how the DS got one by RARE...was that a cry for RARE wanting to come back to nintendo. Other than that, I really hope nintendo can come back to the console wars again.

Considering that it's APRIL 1st, it's hard to take this article seriously.
If it's true, I'm glad Nintendo aren't und Microsoft management.
Also, it does seem odd that Microsoft were after the casual markert with there console when there wasn't exactly a casual market at the time.

April freakin fools .. you fools

@CanisWolfred

This is how all ideas are formed in a major corporation. There is an early phase where every crazy idea is thrown on a table and then cleared out later. It's a natural process of designing a new product, game, movie, etc.

Ahh, I forget the name of the phase. Basically, before a concept is even put together, many varying ideas are thrown out and then as the idea is refined, the terrible ideas are, hopefully, removed and the end product gradually comes into view.

To put this only on Microsoft would be insanely wrong. Remember, at one time, Mario had a gun, and Ocarina of Time was a First-Person title.

Brainstorming? I think it's the brainstorming phase. Then you cut away the chaff, refine the product, narrow the focus, cut away a bit more, add new elements, refine, continue. Hopefully, this work ends up creating something memorable in the end. Given the success of the X360 and (eventual success of the) XBO, I'd have to say they did alright.

Remember, Dan Adelman revealed that Nintendo is so badly organized as a corporation that pretty much anyone can kill an idea, making experimental growth an overly difficult task.

Let's also not forget that while MS and Sony bought a bunch of studios when they entered the industry, Nintendo behaved in a similar manner, but mostly in forcing 3rd parties to sign onto extremely strict, rigid, and profit-eating, exclusive contracts for the "privilege" of developing on the NES.

>buy NIntendo

Are Micro$oft pockets really that deep?

@FLUX_CAPACITOR Nothing is out of Microsoft's price range other than other Megacorps like Disney.

Microsoft buying Nintendo?!?! points and rofl at Microsoft you gotta be kidding me!!! Giving a system away for free!?!?! points and laughs more at them omg, that made my day, thank you!

Only thing Microsoft SHOULD have done was buy SEGA, and they SHOULD have made the Xbox backwards with the Sega Dreamcast like they had planned, that would have been awesome, but buying Nintendo....yaaa...dream on, Microsoft.

@Gridatttack

They spent two billion dollars on just Mojang--and the kicker was that they are more likely to earn money on the deal than if they hadn't spent the money.

Why giving out a system for free or buying a Nintendo a weird idea?