When Microsoft offered the deal back in 1999, former president of Nintendo America, Minoro Arakawa, originally thought that this was a joke, but once Microsoft had detailed their intentions Nintendo was taking the offer seriously and the discussions began in Japan and lasted over 6-7 meetings. Microsofts deal was that Nintendo would stop making consoles and instead make games for the Xbox. But in the end Nintendos CEO at the time, Hiroshi Yamauchi didnt like the idea and belived that Microsoft lacked the understanding of the industry. The chances of the offer being taken died shortly before the gamecubes launch. (This text was mostly quoted from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwF0ezw8evA )
by GodOgoHome
38 Comments
Can you imagine how different the gaming world would look without Nintendo?! No Wii, no handheld revolution. The gaming scene would be an entirely different world without Nintendo as we know it.
You managed to get Rare Microsoft and look what you did with that! So glad this didn’t happen.
To hell with Microsoft. There’s a reason why the video game crashed in 1983. Too many consoles in America with little quality games in each of them. So paying $200-$300 for a console AND the game was downright greedy.
So today, since the 90s. There’s always 2-3 consoles per generation with quality games.
In the end they settled on buying Rare and letting a lot of their IPs die… 🙁
I’d say Yamauchi was definitely right about Microsoft lacking understanding about the industry. Look at where they are in console gaming now…
The Xbox is a great console, but their games(exclusives)… so lacking! No wonder they wanted Nintendo to make games for the Xbox. Either they were too damn lazy or simply just couldn’t come up with great/fun ideas. Was all about the money then, and it seems like they still are 19 years later.
And Nintendo considered it.
>But in the end Nintendos CEO at the time, Hiroshi Yamauchi didnt like the idea and belived that Microsoft lacked the understanding of the industry.
You know if you take this quote and look how they been managing the Xbox one as of lately and how they manage things like Rare, Yamauchi was kind of right.
Yamauchi was right.
he was right. they lack an understanding of the industry to this day and always have.
That this didn’t happen kind of gives me hope we might not be living in the darkest timeline after all…
So prior to the n64 they almost worked together with Sony and prior to gamecube they “almost” ended up with xbox.
They also bought Rare under the impression that Rare owned the Donkey Kong IP.. Lol
“But in the end Nintendos CEO at the time, Hiroshi Yamauchi didnt like the idea and belived that Microsoft lacked the understanding of the industry.”
Narrator: They didn’t.
So interesting thank you for sharing. Lifelong Nintendo fan and had no idea. David Sheff (sp?) should update his Nintendo history book Game Over – maybe he already has and I’m just late to the (Mario) party!
There is an alternate universe where the nightmare is real. This has convinced me to be an optimist.
Microsoft would had killed Nintendo games just how they killed rare games
Funny how they were in talks with SEGA, too.
Good on Nintendo.
Also I do not believe MS (at the top) does know what they are doing in the market.
that’s like 12 and a half minecrafts
Sony wanted to team up with Sega to make a console which Sega of America was all about but Sega of Japan made them say no.
25B???
holy shit
Wow I never knew this…. Interesting.
Smart move by Nintendo, as so far Microsoft has never claimed top spot with any of their consoles . They came close with Xbox 360 but in the end was edged out by the PlayStation 3.
Thank fuck this didn’t happen. Fuck Microsoft.
Sincerely,
Xbox owner
Microsoft back in 1999 was a completely different company. They would have ruined Nintendo.
Good. We saw how they treated Rare
Yamauchi was right. Microsoft doesn’t understand the video game industry, at least not as well as Nintendo does. At the time, Microsoft’s only noteworthy contribution to video games was the DirectX API, but they didn’t seem passionate about making games, just allowing games to run better on Windows.
I like this timeline we are on. I would not trust the timeline with Microsoft being in control of Nintendo IP.
Thank. God.
I think it’s interesting because Microsoft and Nintendo’s ecosystems would quite benefit from each other. Microsoft has a far better online experience and significantly improved hardware but microsoft has terrible exclusives and struggles to hold casual gamers and single player experiences. Microsoft + Nintendo would have extremely strong co-op experiences and a powerful game line up and online experience.
What Microsoft should have done is buying Sega and Nintendo should have bought Rare. Microsoft could have utilized Sega more than Rare.
One word:
#***PHEW***
Nintendo’s controller design is epic. It redefines interactive paradigms each generation, for better or for worse. And of course it fits the gameplay mechanics for their best games.
Just look at the different controllers they’ve made. That’s legit human-computer-interaction innovation. Meanwhile Xbox and PS have had basically the same controller since their inception.
Yamauchi never would’ve sold out for any price. He was a different breed of person from a different era.
Thank God this did not come to fruition. More and more each day, I realize what a gem Nintendo is in the gaming industry.
Imagine a Wii U with Windows Vista on it.
They made a move to do what was better for the industry and not their own pockets. Man how things have changed.
Nintendo ought to never sell out. Ever. ESPECIALLY NOT TO AMAZON. I bet that Amazon in already working on a line of gaming systems.