Microsoft Was Simply Exploring "Every Angle" When It Approached Nintendo About A Buyout

Master chief vs Mario. FIGHT!

EA: "We want a third hardware manufacturer on the market!"

2 years earlier:
Sega "Hey EA, want to develop some games for the Dreamcast?"
EA: "......

Microsoft and Nintendo can be friendly rivals, maybe even friends. But they'd never be able blend as one company. Ultimately they produce very different things. And not only that, the business culture between the two would clash harshly. Both internally and externally they wouldn't mix so much as one would crush the other and absorb the pieces. And no one would be happy with the results.

I'd love for MS and Nintendo to be friends. But they should keep a line between them that allows them to both remain who they are on their own.

You know that its bad when even Sega says no.

I’m surprised EA didn’t suggest “just buy everyone and then shut them down”.

If you actually think back, MS didn’t really do a good job on games OR hardware- early ugly design, then the red ring of death, then a giant black box that was originally prohibitive on playing second hand games by always being online and having the connect that didn’t really work.

XBox really has 2 secrets of success. A. They had good net code and online features, and B. Microsoft’s other business subsidising every mistake they made. You can see why they want to ditch traditional consoles and get everyone playing in the cloud.

@RunninBlue Why should they tell them their "secret strategy"? 😂

Nintendo acts so mighty Bc maybe they are.

@MrGawain - "You can see why they want to ditch traditional consoles and get everyone playing in the cloud"

That's pretty much what I've done this gen with Series S and gamepass.
I won't need to buy a game for it as they are all free and I also have the advantage of being able to stream games when away from the console via my phone - its basically a cheaper Switch (with portability reliant on a WiFi connection).

Healthy competition can be a good thing, and I think having Microsoft in the game has overall been a benefit rather than a hindrance, as there clearly needs to be a direct foil to Sony, who have generally steered the industry in the wrong direction since their first taste of success.

It is a shame Microsoft's early entrance necessitated the death of Rare Ltd., however. They really couldn't have chosen a less appropriate studio to take over. The severity of Rare's removal from Nintendo's second party lineup cannot be overstated, and their absence continues to be felt twenty years later.

Microsoft never should have tried. They killed Rare. That's their legacy. Thanks Bill Gates.

@RunninBlue at the time Sony was one of the most valuable company in the world due to the dot com bubble.

Sounds like the genesis of the Xbox was a bit passionless. But that’s not really a big deal.

Trying to buy someone isn't looking for partners.

This further compounds how bloody cynical MS are. Not for the joy of gaming, but for the promise of profits. Yuck.

Hope they carry on supporting Switch like they are doing. But, I'm sure it won't last.

I’m glad it never happened. What they did to Rare at the time was heartbreaking.

I saw a lot of coments saying Microsoft killed Rare, but I don't know. Sea of thieves looks pretty much alive to this day. Millions of players across all platforms, high steam sales, just received new content this month and support is great. This is far from what a dead company can do.

People usually talk about Rare being dead because they don't work on their old IPs, but that's not on Microsoft. Rare don't want to work on those IPs anymore, biggest proof of this is that Microsoft founded a new studio and they are working on Perfect Dark. Rare wanted to make something new, and Microsoft allowed them, that's sea of thieves, a Rare successful passion project.

Just imagine though, Nintendo agreed to let them handle the specs side of the hardware and we had something powerful and still with Nintendo's innovation.

Also it's quite something that Nintendo turned down working with both Sony and Microsoft and then they both ended up competing as rivals with Nintendo. Makes you wonder who else Nintendo turned down over the years. Did Sega ever try to go into partnership perhaps? Now that would be something.

@Heavyarms55 Yes, one makes game consoles, and the other makes game consoles. They're totally not in the same market.

"Duh where's my Rare Replay Nintendo?"

@eduscxbox Most of us are talking about the original Rare team. What's left of that now, is a mere shell, so it's mostly new people having joined the team after the acquisition by Microsoft, who now make up the new, post-Nintendo Rare, and who made games like Sea of Thieves.

The largest pocket of original developers have already left Rare, and formed companies such as Playtonic, who now effectively are the biggest part of what's left of the original Rare team.

So, it's no wonder that they're not making those old IP's anymore, but it's not so much because they don't WANT to, but more because they have no connection to them or history with them, so it wouldn't be the same anyways. And Microsoft probably knows this as well, otherwise they'd simply instruct them to make new installments of these old IP's, so it's likely that they don't want them to rehash old successes again either.

Hell, yeah! Both companies should explore a partnership.

""In the early days of the Xbox concept, Microsoft didn't want to do the hard work"

Even today, it seems like that. They're already making so much money from their PC side that the Xbox Series X|S is more of just a simplified gaming PC with the Series X having Blu-Ray support. There aren't any true exclusives to the Series X|S so far because most of it has gone onto Windows 10 anyways.

Nintendo told them kindly to walk their arses back across the street. Haha

@ThanosReXXX I'm aware of former rare employees had formed new studios, Yooka-laylee is a great game. The point is not who's working at rare was ther in the 90's. The point is all that "Microsoft destroyed Rare" thinking that some people insist. I can't see how a successful studio is "dead" just because they work on new ips rather than existing ones.

I have to give Microsoft kudos to had the balls to go to Japan and tell Nintendo for a sale of their company. It is not an everyday act to go somewhere and ask for a take-over, especially if you could lose face over it, not that this happened, but in the end, it flopped and it was completely obvious that this would happen. Still, having the guts to do this... not bad.

@eduscxbox No offense, but you're missing the point I was making. The people who have already left ARE what made Rare the company that it was. The new people are only Rare in name, NOT in track record or game development history. Last I read, there's only two original Rare employees still involved with the Microsoft team, meaning that well over 24 (!) people are working elsewhere. (and at least 18 or 20 of them are actually working at Playtonic)

So, for all intent and purposes, Rare IS dead.

Good for them. I have a 360, Fable did it for me. I'll always be a ninety fanster though!

@ThanosReXXX the original team not being in the company anymore doesn't mean it is dead. They made rare what it is, yes, but there are lots of talented people in the estudio that can go forward with the idea of the company. It's not like every nintendo first party studio has the same team it was 20, 30 years ago. There are some people there all this time, but there are lots of new people too and lots of people left the company through the years. That's how gaming industry works, every year lots of developers leave studios for new opportunities. Last year alone there were lots of naughty dog and santa monica developers who left the studio to go to The Initiative and even to Google Stadia, Rod Ferguson left The Coalition to Blizzard, that's simply how it works.

I think this could have been a great opportunity for Nintendo to form a partnership the right way in contrast to the screw-up with Sony.

Nintendo pretty much responded to DIC cartoons the same way, as I understand it. They approached Nintendo for permission to create a cartoon based on, at least Mario, & Nintendo basically told them they were not interested, they were already very successful.

@eduscxbox No offense, AGAIN, but you're still not getting it. Either my point is not coming across because of it being interpreted incorrectly, or perhaps something gets lost in translation because you're not a native speaker, but either way, if you don't really understand what I'm trying to say in regards to why people feel this way (and rightfully so) about Rare, then there's little use in continuing the conversation, so I guess I'm off to other, more constructive topics...

@NathanTheAsian You do realize that Microsoft also owns Windows 10... right? It's dumb to introduce competition between your own company, especially when they can make each game work on either platform. The fact that they don't have "Console" exclusives doesn't mean they don't make exclusive games, it just means that PS5 and Nintendo Switch owners can play the games without buying hardware that is either priced to lose money, or at best break even. In a 4 pronged war for our Gaming dollar, MS has firm ground on two of the four fronts. That's what I'd call ingenious.

@TheBeastFromTheEast They went to NOA. Literally across the street in Redmond Washington. Exactly where MS is already located.

@Dustmite72
You ask me that yet I LITERALLY said that Microsoft does both Windows 10 and Xbox. I don't know if you read me properly, but I meant it as a COMPLIMENT towards Microsoft for being able to stand their ground in the game industry. You'll want to read my comment again.

The way I see it, the Xbox Series X|S is a convenient gaming PC. It doesn't require the setup of a gaming PC and it also doesn't have to be maintained as much, but it runs games at the level of an average gaming PC.

@Capt_N Is that some kind of joke? Surely you've heard of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, The Legend of Zelda (the animated series), and Captain N: The Game Master, all of which were produced by DiC.

@DrDaisy Yes I have heard of, and enjoy them for what they were. As a matter of fact, my 3DS/WU/Switch name is based on Captain N, as is my username here. It was early in the morning when I typed that comment. I forgot to add that those cartoons did get made, like you said, but that initially Nintendo was reluctant. Again though, that is what I read somewhere online. I honestly forget where, and the information may have not been accurate.