Nintendo "laughed their assess off" when Microsoft tried to acquire the company in 2000

[Eagle367]

Ka-pi96 said:

DonFerrari said:

Considering Nissan, Mitsubishi and several other major Japanese companies were "merged" (bought) by oversea companies and Sony had massive share holders outside of Japan I doubt there is any law that would prevent Nintendo from selling if they wanted, I would guess MS lawyers would know the law. And if such a law existed then MS wouldn't even be able to open a company over there as they do or open a studio there as they intend.

Yeah, I assumed they were just spouting bullshit. Pretty sure I've actually called them out on that before and they refused to answer that time too.

Somebody posted something about Japan tightening laws on foreign ownership earlier, but that's literally just a law that requires vetting before the purchase can go through to protect national security. ie. no selling to suspicious Chinese companies. It certainly isn't a "no foreigners allowed" law.

I believe I read about a law that protects Japanese companies from hostile takeovers but if Ninty wanted it to happen, I don't think japan would stop it. The laws I know about are against what was about to happen to Ubisoft before it stopped.