Namco's IPs aren't even that valuable... again, all the attractive stuff is really Bandai side (Gundam, SRT, DBZ, Naruto, One Piece, etc).

If Nintendo wanted to start buying their way into troubled Japanese software houses, I think they'd get a whole lot more mileage out of Sega. Sonic alone probably still has more worldwide brand cache than all Namco's properties combined...

Well in my opinion Namco's best games haven't appeared on the Wii. I don't know whether they would be commercially successful but i guess if they wre exclusive then the fanbase would follow them. Ridge racer was one of my favourite N64 games and i think it would be amazing on the Wii. R racing, whilst i know not everyone's cup of tea, was also one of my favourite games on the GC. Namco has quite a good portfolio what with those, plus all the amine games and Tekken. That has never been on a Nintendo console before so it may do well too. I think the portfolio is what Nintendo should be after.

Nah. And they won't.

Yeah Nintendo should totally invest in a company who are struggling to post any profits...

But seriously, this thread holds no logic whatsoever.

Nintendo should invest in Capcom. Capcom actually asked them to at one point (at which point Nintendo bought shares in Bandai instead, lol).

Oh, i didn't know this. Interesting. Wouldn't mind if Nintendo invested in Capcom either. I just said Namco because they might be receptive to it at mo and because of personal preference.

I'd love it if they did, but I don't think that would ever happen.

It was in mid 2004 iirc, Capcom was sort of dropping hints all over the place that Nintendo should buy in and the Japanese financial industries were speculating like crazy it was going to happen.  When Nintendo passed the offer (and added insult to injury by buying into Bandai), the GC to PS2 ports started rolling in (Viewtiful Joe, RE4, etc) and projects that were natural fits for GC started avoiding the platform entirely (Okami, Under the Skin, etc).

In the end, Nintendo just lost more Capcom support, and Bandai (fearing a Nintendo takeover) just diluted their influence with the Namco merger.  Not really a great outcome for Nintendo to be honest, which is why I kind of doubt they'll buy into another huge publisher anytime soon...

Imagine if they had bought into Capcom all those years ago. They could have had exclusivity on all the Capcom IP's now. Sounds like if they were invited into buying in, they could have had a controlling stake by now. Bet Nintendo regrets it now, especially after missing out on RE5.

They're still getting pretty good support from Capcom, though I agree I think Nintendo would've liked to have cornered stuff like RE5, DMC4 and SF4.  Those sorts of exclusives could've gone a long way towards countering the incessant "hardcore" and "mature" complaints constantly leveled against Wii by the industry press and their mindless lapdogs.  I also think games like Dead Rising (which started out as a PS2 game btw) and Lost Planet built ground up for Wii could've been interesting.  And no, CTYD doesn't give a good indication of what to expect.