Nintendo Confirms $661 Million Sale of Majority Ownership of Seattle Mariners

Well, that paid for the NX research and development!

@GrailUK That was probably already paid for. Now they can put the money towards actually marketing the thing and get more Ads on TV etc. XD

That's a lot of spaghetti.

@DarthNocturnal It was originally 666 million, but that was the number of the beast. So they offered 668 million, but that was the neighbour of the beast. SO they settled or seattle'd for 661 million.

I wonder what the money will be going towards... hmm...

I wonder if Nintendo will still advertise in the space behind home plate.

That will pay for the cyanide pills in the event of NX having 'wii' in its final name.

@HappyMaskedGuy it's the third wii, so it'll be called the nintendo THWII!!!

Out of interest why did they own the majority share of a baseball team in the first place? Was it Howard Lincoln's doing?

A company selling something off isn't usually a positive sign. Though I know nothing of this situation, so I am probably mistaken.
@Jamotello Reggie would have to adopt a lisp for it all to go smoothly. He wouldn't mind, guy lies about everything.

@Churchy
Long story, but basically the Mariners were in financial trouble in 1992, so they turned to local investors to perhaps save the team. Nintendo had recently re-located its American headquarters to Seattle from NYC, and then Nintendo President Yamauchi decided it would be a good gesture of gratitude to the city of Seattle to buy a 49% stake in the team.

Fast forward to now, and they've basically made a 10x profit on the original sale. And we got a few kickass baseball games to boot!

@HappyMaskedGuy
Don't worry, this is a good thing. Any kind of long term investment that can turn $60 million into $600 million is excellent. It's basic economics: buy when low, sell when high.

@SmaMan Thanks for the explanation man. Ah it was Hiroshi Yamauchi. That's a really cool story concerning Ninty. And as for the financial investment, it certainly beats out the love hotels they owned.

@SmaMan @Churchy It seems to be a slightly different story: apparently, the United States Senator Slade Gorton asked Nintendo of America to find a Japanese investor who would keep the club in Seattle. And that ended up being Hiroshi Yamauchi:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshi_Yamauchi#Ownership_of_the_Seattle_Mariners

@Churchy Just for fun: see if you knew them all:
http://mashable.com/2011/10/02/nintendo-facts/#_

@ThanosReXXX Thanks for the links. I really hope the story of him buying a baseball team without ever seeing a match is true.

As the for the mashable list, there are a few I was unaware of (or the full details) - the N&B Blocks one certainly I didn't know. Nintendo's court cases have always been interesting ones!

@ThanosReXXX
Right, I cut those details out of the "long story." It was a huge campaign to get that investor on board.

Here's a good article about the whole story: http://uproxx.com/gammasquad/seattle-mariners-nintendo-ownership/2/

Tidy profit, winning!

@SmaMan I actually meant the difference with "Yamauchi decided it would be a good gesture of gratitude to the city of Seattle" since he certainly did not do it out of the kindness of his heart. He couldn't care less, otherwise he would have shown his face, even for once at one of the games.

He was a tough as nails business man who was probably only kind to his family members, or maybe even only the ones closest to him.

@Churchy you're welcome. But just out of curiosity: why would you hope that it is true that he never attended a baseball match?

That's their R&D expenditure back in the bank and then some...... Blimey. They seem to be making all the right moves at all the right times recently, and that gives me high hopes for what's to come.

Onwards and upwards, friends.

What a great investment, both in money & local goodwill.

Guess how much money I've made this year lol

That is a great return on investment...I need to borrow Nintendo's financial advisors for a second...

That's great now pass on the benefits to your loyal fans

I honestly had no clue that Nintendo owned a majority stake in an MLB team. No clue.

So that's where all them coins come from in the Mario games!

...whistles..GOODBYE MR. SPALDING!..that's alotta Yoshi eggs behind that 661...

Hmm. It was kind of nice that they owned a team local to their North American office. Still, not the greatest loss. Even us Washingtonians don't care about the Mariners :/

Considering how much we know they have in the bank, I wonder if this sale was a cute way to shore up their profits on the books before NX performs it's alleged turnaround.

Wow, KA-CHING...!!
Quite enough to develop sturdy NX.

@Rect_Pola @Thomas Most likely not. Nintendo is a publicly traded company so they most likely have their financial statements made under IFRS.

This means that any income they make that isn't directly related to their regular operations must be separated from their regular income (like game and consoles sales for example).

That's why IFRS statements of comprehensive income have a section for "other comprehensive income" which is factored in after the "important" net income line.

And no you can't fudge something like that since the statement of comprehensive income would have to be approved by auditors before it can be released to the public. If the auditors went through with that they'd get into serious trouble and why risk it for something that wouldn't be that hard to track if the government decides they want to check that discrepancy?

so they put Mario in it, but not Mario AND sonic........why? its a good reference/easter egg?

$661 millions? That's insane, that's more than any Kickstarter, okay Nintendo now how about using those money and start giving us some new games: a new true Metroid, F-Zero, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, and Advance Wars for Wii U or NX would be awesome.

$661 million is not a lot of money these days for big companies. Nintendo spent roughly $500 million each year on R&D alone. A console took a few years to develop, the NX total R&D cost would have to be a couple billions.

@retro_player_22 NX for sure, Wii U...... perhaps not.

It sounds great, until you realize they may have to pay taxes, figure out how much they spent on the team since the purchase, etc. It may not be as much of a return as shown here.