Microsoft wants to buy Nintendo
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Of course THEY want to have Nintendo, they'd want Sony if they could straight up buy them
But if I remember right, Nintendo have a war chest so large that they'd laugh in the face of any attempt at buying them. They also have franchises doing extremely well compared to the failures of other studios and have a stranglehold on the Japanese Market where Microsoft failed to gain a significant foothold.
This sounds like either and intern fucked up a leak they were supposed to do or gaming media trying to stir some drama for clicks. Either way the response will be the same from Nintendo: "lol!"
Didn't Microsoft offer to buy Nintendo in the past and Nintendo execs laughed them out of the room.
I think so, they've had a huge war chest for DECADES and are happy being in their niche than expanding and consuming.
Turns out, excellent strategy as they're equal with Microsoft surviving another gaming recession.
They were literally laughed out of the room.
Yes. That was just before the first Xbox.
They also have Master Trust Bank as as 17% owner. So while they're not actually part of the Mitsubishi Group, they're distantly related, in the same way that Sony is distantly related to Sumitomo.
If a hostile takeover was attempted, Nintendo would simply call in support from on high and buy back their foreign held shares. The Keiretsu do not let go of their shit.
You seem to know a lot about this. What’s the deal with Sony and insurance? I remember hearing back during the PS3 days that insurance was Sony’s biggest money maker.
Okay let's start at the very high level.
What Are Keiretsu?
Keiretsu are massive vertically and horizontally integrated Japanese business groups, each of which is consolidated around a private bank, some of which can trace their lineages back to the familial Zaibatsu of Meiji era Japan. The big six horizontal Keiretsu are DKB, Fuyo, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sanwa, and Sumitomo, although of those, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, along with Mizuho Financial, are really the most powerful.
Then there are the newer vertical keiretsu, most of which deal in modern manufacturing like Honda and Hitachi and really grew out of the war or postwar era. Although 7&i Holdings (literally 7-11, as in the C-store chain) is also getting big enough to be counted among them (much like how Walmart and Amazon are the elephant in the room in the US).
So what about Sony?
Sony is reckoned among the vertical keiretsu. Like all their peers, they have a private bank, Sony Financial Group, which holds over 14 trillion yen in assets (almost half the total worth of Sony Group) and includes Sony Bank and Sony Life. SFG is somewhere around 10-20% of the total Sony Group revenues, so it's entirely possible that in some years, they could potentially be the leading component (ahead of the various individual entertainment and electronics companies in the group).
Where it gets even more complicated is that the horizontal keiretsu usually have their claws in the vertical ones, and are possessive of what's "theirs" even when they don't own enough to bring them into their group. Sony is effectively in the orbit of Sumitomo, while Nintendo is in the orbit of Mitsubishi, as is Square Enix.
Anyway, you would really have to go down deep into Sony group's financials to be sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if during the early loss-leader days of the PS3, that Sony Interactive Entertainment was probably not looking so hot compared to its peers in the group. But the whole point of the group being built around a central private bank is that they can do that sort of stuff without having to deal with activist investors complaining about the short term consequences to shareholder value. They can play the strategic long game.
Insurance (and business in general) works very differently in Japan than in the west.
Nintendo substantially boosted its liquidity over the past year. Not to mention, the rumored Nintendo Cinematic Universe may be another lucrative revenue stream under its portfolio.
I mean Mario film was a success, Halo wasn't. And technically Pokemon are under their umbrella and well, we see how that prints money regardless of which media and format it is on...
The war chest doesn’t even matter. The Japanese government would never approve this. Same thing with the French government and Ubisoft.