| LivingMetal said: Mario on Xbox almost became a reality when Microsoft first proposed a buyout of Nintendo. But when Microsoft made known that Nintendo was to cease hardware production, Nintendo back out of the potential deal. Otherwise, we would have seen a Mario game on the Xbox. Look on the bright side. Competition is good for the industry. |
False. Never became a almost reality. MS wanted to but Nintendo was never going to sell(not even sure Japanese Gov would allow it). Nintendo never had interest. During that era Nintendo said they would never leave the hardware business unless they were bankrupt(it's in a interview with one of my old Gamenow Magazines). They wanted to also buy SEGA esp considering Xbox was nearly BC with all DC games as DC used Direct X 6 and Win CE and nearly had VMUs. Instead they settled on some exclusive games MS would publish. NoA of the time thought it was a joke and laughed it off. Yamauchi at best entertatined MS to get a look inside someone who wants to compete with them but there was never any chance Nintendo was going to sell.
There never was any deal on the table for MS to buy Nintendo. Yes Moore said MS wanted to. However magazines like EGM speculated there were deals and over the years that turned to rumor and rumor turned to false facts people spread. It was never going to happen. You have to remember Nintendo had no plans to exit the hardware business,in fact they attempted to strengthen it. They wanted all the rights to Harry Potter games for Gamecube. They nearly did buy Namco but 4 years later settled for buying Monolith Soft from Namco. Not to mention all the arcade hardware using GCN architecture like Triforce. No,Nintendo wanted more of their hardware out there. They even believed GCN only real competitor was the GBA.
