They had only $4.3 billion cash on hand as of 2018 (surely more by now thanks to the success and maturation of the Switch.) But Microsoft just dropped a little less than double that on ZeniMax.
I wish Nintendo were in such a rock-solid place where I'd feel confident about them existing forever like Disney but I don't think that's ever been the case.
Edit- The people downvoting me have apparently already forgotten about the Wii U. Imagine if they had two such systems in a row, without the DS/3DS line as a profitable fallback. Such are the possibilities of the future.
When Nintendo's doing well, they're doing great, and everyone seems to forget the bad times. The GameCube era wasn't much better, but at least the GameCube and GBA were profitable/break even from their launches, as opposed to the Wii U and especially 3DS post-Ambassador price cut.
Would be interested in a discussion or any kind of rebuttal from others who are actually familiar with Nintendo's financial history.
To be clear: Nintendo as a company operated a loss from 2012-2015. An incompetent CEO could easily exacerbate that into a death spiral. Don't take Nintendo for granted, is all I'm saying.
It's a possibility but pivoting to software isn't easy by any stretch, and it wasn't something Sega should have even been able to do (financially.) The only reason it happened is because Sega's biggest debtor, Isao Okawa, forgave that debt on his deathbed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/business/isao-okawa-74-ch...
In a slightly altered timeline where Okawa didn't do this, Sega would have went under and its IP's would have been sold piecemeal to the highest bidders.
"It eventually became one of the most prominent figures in today's video game industry, being the world's largest video game company by revenue"
i.e. on the verge of bankruptcy according to ^
And there you have a key difference between Microsoft and Nintendo.
As a Nintendo baby, it'd be a dark day if some conglomerate bought them.
I was just thinking though, if they needed money they could easily raise crazy amounts of cash from their fanbase via crowdfunding.
It's frustrating because there's a lot of untapped potential.
I feel Apple Arcade sucks. I recently subscribed, cause I thought maybe my daughter would enjoy it. But most of the games are still too hard for her. So then I tried to play some games on Arcade for myself, but can't say I enjoyed it. Played a few games for 15 - 30 minutes then got bored. There just seems to be very few -if any- really quality games on Apple Arcade, at least from my point of view.
A few days ago I ordered the Retroid Pocket 2 [0], I hope this device will help me get my gaming fix.
If the Retroid Pocket 2 provides me and my daughter with a fun experience, then later I'll order a 2nd one for my daughter. I believe old NES/SNES games are probably easier to play for a 3.5 year old child compared to most of Apple Arcade's offerings. My daughter can already handle a simple gamepad, so as long as the game doesn't use too many buttons (4 directions + A/B/X/Y), a game should be playable for her.
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[0]: https://www.goretroid.com/products/retroid-pocket-2-handheld...
It's fine for extremely casual or touch based games but doesn't work for anything serious.
NES games might be hard. I never really had a NES while I was young. But I do know for sure some SNES games that will be easy to play. E.g. Mario Kart & Unirally. There's some videos on YouTube that shows other games that are playable by young children [0]. Super Double Dragon isn't too complicated either I think and the Retroid Pocket 2 can be connected to a tv using HDMI cable and can use BLE to connect controllers. So that way I can play together with my daughter at the same time, to make it even easier for her.
Here's a video that suggests some NES games for children [1].
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Like, that's a lot of money, even for Apple, and then I'm not sure Nintendo would want to sell?
Nintendo definitely wouldn't want to sell but it's publicly traded so a hostile takeover is always in the cards