This news may be a little old, but it is still worth a look.

Even though Bill Gates made an off-the-cuff remark concerning interest in purchasing Nintendo, some believe that it wasn' t just a simple remark...

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He' s a moron...isnt he happy enough with his computer and Xbox earnings?Damn him for wanting to have everything....NINTENDO MUST NOT FALL TO THE PLAGUE THAT IS GATES!

Nintendo had already turned them down FLAT!

yay for that! Don' t go over to the darkside nintendo, please for the love of God don' t!

I say sell, sell, sell. The big N is goin the way of the Dino' s in the console market, and it would be best if they gave MS console game rights but continue to make their own handhelds and games for it. Think, it would give them a way to bail out of the extremely expensive console market while still having a console they are intimately attached to. Win-Win in my opinion.

Yup Nintendo needs to just pack up there bags and hit the road, its like wipeing your hiney before you poo it just dont make any since. I have never bought a single nintendo product and probably never will, The N is dead and dosnt belong I laugh at them right now for their lack of marketing and there whimpy games! Do they ever have new releases? Now on another thought that new Zelda looks damn good but can that save them from being tyranized by the giants? who knows, but I see Nintendo going down but now with a whimper but a bang!

I disagree 110%.. Nintendo' s the last bit of tradition we have in this industry and they' re still one of the most profitable game companies.

I' d love to see them stick around the hardware market for a looooong time to come. They' re the only real threat to Sony in Japan, Microsoft is a joke there.. They' re also holding their own over here so there' s no need for them to even entertain the thought of even sellling 1 share over to Microsoft.

I' ll buy a share! I promise I do not nor ever will work for MicroSoft!

I still like Nintendo products...Mario is probably more fun than a lot of PS2 and XBox games out there...Go NINTENDO! WHOOO

I disagree 110%.. Nintendo' s the last bit of tradition we have in this industry and they' re still one of the most profitable game companies.

I' d love to see them stick around the hardware market for a looooong time to come. They' re the only real threat to Sony in Japan, Microsoft is a joke there.. They' re also holding their own over here so there' s no need for them to even entertain the thought of even sellling 1 share over to Microsoft.

I disagree to a point...Atari was there before Nintendo. Though the Atari reputation was sold, many of the games made for the next-gen concoles (by Atari) are quality products.

The point I am trying to make...

If Nintendo were to become part of M$, it might actually be better for all of us. Nintendo has many franchise games that M$ would love to either release new games in the series, or produce a compilation of past games.

Also, with Nintendo under their wing, M$ might gain share in Japan against the Sony empire.

The point I am trying to make...

If Nintendo were to become part of M$, it might actually be better for all of us. Nintendo has many franchise games that M$ would love to either release new games in the series, or produce a compilation of past games.

Also, with Nintendo under their wing, M$ might gain share in Japan against the Sony empire.

Right.. Atari was there before Nintendo but Atari were also the ones who helped killed the industry way back when. Nintendo breathed life back into it.

As a traditionalist I' ll never embrace the idea of Nintendo and Sega merging or being bought by another company. Nintendo certainly has NO reason to a buy out since they have billions of dollars in cash in the bank.

I don' t see Nintendo going with Microsoft as a good thing in any way. Nintendo always does things their way. I just don' t see them being allowed such luxuries and freedoms under the Microsoft umbrella. Now Nintendo buying the Microsoft and Sony game divisions would be a good thing ;)

Why should a popular, Superior game company (Nintendo) with a hefty bank account and several multi-million selling franchises sell out to a newcomer + inferior company (Microsoft) with maybe 1 million seller under its belt?

If old man Yamauchi continues to have any say, I' m happy to say that he' ll never sell. You see how tough he made it for Squaresoft to jump aboard the profitable GBA wagon. He saw them licking their lips, wanting aboard that gravy train after their Final Fantasy movie blew chunks at the box office and they were almost financially crippled because of it. Like the shrewd, lovable bastid that he is, he dangled that GBA carrot in front of them, yanked it back as they tried to reach for it and added the stipulation that they must do something on the GameCube as well if they want on. I' m sure he' ll remain just as sturdy in telling Gates to screw off

Terry Bogard,

This response is directed at you...

Let me start by saying that M$ is not a newcomer...heard of a little company called Microsoft (a.k.a. M$; owns the PC world).

As for 1 million sellers...all of the ' Platinum Hits' titles are at least 1 million sellers! And, even though quite a few are not produced directly by M$, it was M$ that made the deal(s) to have these games released on the XBOX.

Nintendo is not even as big as Sony (90+ billion in worth), and M$ is more than 3-4 times Sony' s numbers.

And with developers dropping away, albeit somewhat slowly, it is only a matter of time until all games for Nintendo systems will have to come directly from Nintendo. Didn' t work for Sega...won' t work for Nintenedo...

I will give you the argument about creative licensing being somewhat restricted by M$. It has been a well-known fact that if M$ doesn' t like it, it won' t see the light of day. But, if it is a promising concept, it will be hyped from here to Heaven!

As for Sega, they did what they thought was good for them...and it has had mixed results. If they don' t start doing better, we may be looking at the prosepct of another offer by M$ for the ownership of Sega as a newly acquired development house.

...and Sega has a whole lot more creativity than Nintendo!!!

Only time, and game sales, will determine the destiny of Nintendo.

I hope Nintendo wakes up with concern to the manner in which their game systems are developed, because they are close to being out of business with their proprietary disc system and no online capabilities.

M$ listens to gamers, as well as developers.

Japanese companies like Nintendo and Sony have kept to the idea that they know what' s best...well, guess what? They don' t...

We all have our favorite company(-ies), but the truth is that the weak may die. You should be ready for Nintendo to announce the end of console production and their return (like Sega) to developing only software. The creativity will remain, just on various console systems.

M$ is a very strong company, Sony is a very strong company, and Nintendo is a struggling company...you do the math...

What I meant was that Microsoft is a newcomer to console gaming. Which they are. Sony went through that with the PSOne and established themselves. Microsoft is going through that with the Xbucket.

Platinum titles include third party titles as well which isn' t what I meant. I' m talking about Microsoft developed titles. Microsoft isn' t the only one making deals to get high selling third party titles released on their platforms, ever heard of Sony and Nintendo? ;)

Is Sony worth $90 billlion as a whole company or just their gaming division? Cause last time I checked, their gaming division did NOT have access to all of the company' s funds. They' re allotted a certain amount of funds to run their gaming divisions. Nintendo has several billion dollars in the bank as cash that they can claim as their own. Sony' s game division can' t make the same claims to all of the company' s assetts. I' m not sure but I think Microsoft' s game division is certainly more well off than Sony. And we' re just talking about game divisions here.

It' s true that developers are slowly dropping away from Nintendo but don' t forget about the ones signing on to do games for them. As for Sega being the only ones to support their consoles. Name 1 Sega console where Sega was the only developer for it? The Dreamcast was receiving third-party support until Sega announced to its developers that they were canning the system' s life support. But up until that point they had third-party support. The Saturn received lots of support in Japan and an *ugh* amount in the U.S. but still more then just Sega' s support, why do you think EA was so pissed off with them over the Saturn? Also their add-ons, though piss poor, still got a little " sumpin sumpin" . The Genesis no doubt received tons o' love, and then you have the Sega Master System which was the only console where for a time they seemed to be the only developers for it, NOT because of lack of interest from other developers, but only because Nintendo' s third-party contract prevented any NES developers from developing on competing platforms.

And it' s absurd to think that Nintendo will ever be the only ones developing games on their future consoles. ;)
Sega had way more problems than Nintendo. Most of which was how badly they were bleeding money since the Saturn era and ontop of that they had lots of internal problems.

I think Nintendo going with Sony or Microsoft would definitely place limits on their games. For example, Sony has made it no secret that they' re not fond of 2D gaming and they' ve rejected quite a few games just because they were 2D.
Nintendo doesn' t share the same philosophies as Sony and Microsoft so I can definitely see them butting heads about creative licensing.

Sega did what they had to do to survive, I respect that. Doesn' t mean I have to like it. But regardless, they' ll always remain my favorite game company on the planet. I just wish they accepted Namco' s offer to merge instead ;) :p

As for Sega having alot more creativity than Nintendo, maybe so, but who' s creativity got them somewhere?

I think Nintendo is well aware of their situation and have made attempts to rectify them and are continuing to do so. Their lack of definite on-line plans for the GameCube has always counted against them in a way, but since online gaming on consoles is still in its infancy, I don' t think it makes much of a significant impact that a console has it or not.

As for their propietary media, it wasn' t long ago that people were bashing Nintendo' s love for cartridges and were saying how they needed to finally move onto disc based media. They did that. Who cares what type of discs they use just as long as they dumped cartridges. I' ve heard no complaints from developers and the rest of the industry regarding their choice of disc technology for da GameCubez. Once in a rare while I' ll read something from 2-3 people who would have liked for DVD movie playing capabilities on da Cube but then they were always met by 20 or more responses from people who didn' t care cause they preferred their stand-alone DVD players over those found in the PS2 and Xbox. Personally I would love to play DVD movies on my GameCube but I didn' t deduct any points from it for not having the capability as its a kickazz Gamez console.

How can you say that Japanese companies like Nintendo and Sony have kept to the idea that they know best but yet not include Microsoft into the equation?

You may be ready to hear Nintendo soon announce the end of their run in the console department but I think you' re setting yourself up for a major disappoint :)
They' ve already announced their next platform and I have a very strong feeling they' ll be another after that.

Microsoft is indeed a strong Computer Software company but their Xbox plans involved a hefty LOSS in order to penetrate the console market. So while they may not make much money this generation, they' re setting the stage for the Xbox 2 to be their profitable venture. So with that, as a console company I wouldn' t exactly classify them as being that strong yet. Now Sony on the other hand is Incredibly strong. And Nintendo is still strong to, according to some reports, the GBA outsells both the Xbox and the PS2. The Gamecube on the other hand may not be the lead console but it ain' t selling bad in either of the territories neither. Can' t say the same for Microsoft who' s console sometimes struggles to sell past triple digits in Japan.

When Nintendo starts bleeding money through every open wound like Sega did, when the threat of going bankrupt is a reality, when their games are no longer selling well, and when they no longer dominate the handheld market, Then and only then will I entertain 25% of the idea of them merging or selling.

I have faith in them.

Kudos, Terry Bogard!

I concede this round...you do make a solid argument for Nintendo, and I respect you for that.

It is my hope that Nintendo' s next-gen system will earn them much respect and profit.

As for the GBA' s success...was there any real competition against GBA?

The N-Gage is failing miserably...you can get better games on your cell phone!

Maybe when the PSP comes out...and maybe not even then...

We' ll see...

There was No round fought to concede to, we' re both just gamers expressing our views on our beloved industry

Amen...

I look forward to other in-depth discussions in the future...

YAY!!! This didnt turn into a " Fathoms" thread with lots of whining and fanboy calling. LOL.

Really guys, props on arguing the points and then being man enough to say " we both made valid points and have different views, so lets just settle with dignity"

Sometimes forum posters need to get into heated discussions...it tends to bring out the best in all parties involved. Keeps ya' sharp as a tack!

And who could argue that the resulting informational exchange isn' t informative, if not entertaining!

...builds respect for fellow forum posters, too.

Yup Nintendo needs to just pack up there bags and hit the road, its like wipeing your hiney before you poo it just dont make any since. I have never bought a single nintendo product and probably never will, The N is dead and dosnt belong I laugh at them right now for their lack of marketing and there whimpy games! Do they ever have new releases? Now on another thought that new Zelda looks damn good but can that save them from being tyranized by the giants? who knows, but I see Nintendo going down but now with a whimper but a bang!

Uhhhh...how old are you?