If Nintendo were going to buy another studio...

[gumby_trucker]

People in this thread seriously thinking Nintendo should buy HVS are insane!

I could understand collaborating with them on a project, even funding/publishing an original IP like they did with n-Space's game Geist. But outright buying them without any evidence they are a good investment!? Madness.

Certainly there are many, MANY independent studios with a much better track record out there. Just look at any number of those currently collaborating with Nintendo for a better candidate: Next Level, Monster, Headstrong, Curve Studios, Treasure etc. (Platinum goes without mentioning)
If that's not enough there's also tons of studios that haven't collaborated with Nintendo, but have simply released quality content for their systems over the years, such as Shinen, Nnooo,Vigil (recently deceased) and many more in the past (SK, Blue Tongue, Factor 5...).

There was nothing amazing about HVS's ability to program a half-decent engine on Wii besides the fact that they were one of a few studios in the west to make any effort to do so. Even then I don't think their results were as spectacular as they made them out to be, and certainly no better than those from Treyarch, Ubisoft, Eurocom, Head Strong etc. High Voltage just made a lot of noise about their tech because they saw it as an opportunity to gain market-share.

Monolith Soft and Retro (both technically part of Nintendo) certainly had better tech running on Wii, so it's not even accurate to say Nintendo couldn't do what HVS did if they wanted to.

The only benefit I see for Nintendo in buying HVS is that they're among the few studios that are probably desperate enough to do anything Nintendo orders them to do, no questions asked.