Nintendo doesn't like buying out companies. First of all, they let go of both RARE and Silicon Knights (That Too Human game BETTER be worth the ~10 years of time invested), two second party companies (though I don't think they ever "owned" Silicon Knights) I also remembering some time ago that Nintendo says that if they bought a company, what would happen if all the programmers left? Then they'd be out a bunch of money, they'd have some IP's, but the company would be gutted as far as talent is concerned. (i.e. Rare people leaving to from Free Radical and the Time Splitters IP) I think Nintendo would rather fund smaller developers and then in turn publish their IP's under exclusive liscenses, kind of like how they got Pokemon from Game Freak
