| Experimental42 said: Also, if Nintendo wanted, they could easily acquire struggling Sega and Capcom to secure historic IPs and apply the Nintendo Midas touch (as far as quality is concerned I mean) to flagging series like Sonic and Resident Evil, and revive the long dead Megaman. Could you imagine if the minds behind arguably the greatest platformer series ever made, had unlimited access to Sonic the Hedgehog? Hell let's think of series that Nintendo could secure as exclusives by such a buyout: Megaman, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry (which would also let Kamiya get his hands on it again), Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Onimusha, Viewtiful Joe, Sonic, Crazy Taxi, Yakuza, Phantasy Star, and Panzer Dragoon to name a few. |
I don't think buying Capcom is necessary in any sense. Sega, I would love for Nintendo to buy - between Sega, Atlus, and Nintendo, there's a broad array of franchises to choose from, and the three distinct brands would be useful for better targetting of products and avoiding image issues.
That all being said, I could easily see Nintendo approaching certain publishers with a deal - they'll bankroll a heap of games from those publishers, on two conditions: the games have to be for Nintendo consoles, and they have to be subjected to Nintendo QA (not just the bug-testing kind that is needed to publish on the system, but full QA as used internally).
The benefits to the publisher are threefold: they minimise financial risk, since Nintendo is bankrolling the development, advertising, etc. They minimise the development risk, since there would be no inherent restrictions on franchises, etc (although Nintendo would presumably be able to veto obvious selections of franchises that don't even have a chance of getting noticed - this means that developers are much more free to develop the game they want, rather than having to explain why it'll be a big-seller. And they get the benefit of Nintendo guidance on their franchises, which they may not want to admit to, but it would be incredibly beneficial to them.
Sega, Capcom, Tecmo Koei, and Namco Bandai would all be great candidates for this sort of deal.
