Mistwalker - where are the console games?

[Nuvendil]

badgenome said:

Chris Hu said:
Lost Odyssey was indeed great but Blue Dragon was pretty average the only thing great about it was the music. But pretty much any game that has music that is composed by Nobuo Uematsu has great music. Probably would have liked it a lot more if I was a fan of Akira Toriyama but I never got into Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z.

I must be the only person on the planet who liked Blue Dragon way, way more than Lost Odyssey. I liked them both, but I found BD big and vibrant while LO was about one Jansen Friedh away from being kind of a snore.

Nuvendil said:
This is a Studio I think Nintendo should pick up, believe it or not. Last Story was a well received game and having Mistwalker would give them another RPG maker of yet another style. And this would be a cheap pickup compared to any other options. And also they have experience with handheld and console style games and are familiar with the PowerPC architecture Nintendo likes to use. Not to mention it would be one more celebrity to add to their roster of heavy hitters.

I don't really see the point. Mistwalker is more of a design studio than a developer. They don't have the capacity to do anything other than mobile games internally. So if they're going to make console games they'll need a publisher as well as a co-developer to do all the heavy lifting, and since publishers aren't exactly beating down their door, Nintendo can already have them all to themselves if they want without buying them.

True, but picking them up has some tactical advantages as well as public relations ones.  Hironobu Sakaguchi is still a big name to a lot of JRPG fans, though perhaps not as big as he once was.  Being able to say they have him would be a big deal, especially since they already have another heavy hitter in Takahashi.  Tactically, it cuts of competition.  Sony and MS aren't beating down their door right now, but if they made a couple games for Nintendo that die rather well (or if MS is in need of an RPG), one or both could come knocking.  Buying Mistwalker preemptively cuts them off.  But yes, if they don't want to spend money right now they could just establish a partnership agreement since no one else is.