no and if they did do something like a buyout i can see maybe a merger but not with apple as being teh parent company. could you imagine if nintendo had the rights to make apple's hardware competative or even be as easy to work with as a pc is then can you imagine the possibilities and profits and the hardware lineup? but like i said i cant see apple going to buy nintendo because nintendo is easily five to ten times the size of apple as in worth.

Nintendo's market value is between $55 and $70 billion.

I am honestly sick of the misinterpretation that they are a small company with a tiny market cap. Just two years ago they passed up Sony in net worth and market cap, so I highly doubt they could just be bought out, especially with their former CEO still owning a healthy amount of the stock.

The day this happens is the day I quit gaming.

this is exactly what im talking about nintendo's worth is so much more then apple's worth. 

I created a thread sort of like this when Wii was first announced years ago. However it isn't going to happen for some fundamental reasons

#1- When Bill Gates tried to aquire Nintendo he offered pretty much a blank cheque. However Nintendo wanted to maintain complete control over its console and game development. Something Microsoft wasn't about to do. In the same way if Apple wanted to buy Nintendo a key demand would be that Nintendo retain full control of its console division and software division, something Apple wouldn't likely do either.

#2. Apple is all about making money off of cheap internet games. Nintendo is a supporter of bigger budget higher quality software. Nintendo has multiple times talked about how it would never launch cheap 99cent games and such. So Apple would have a very hard time convincing Nintendo's staff to pump out cheap Flash like games. In the end Nintendo would never allow their software to be degraded in such a way. So Apple would have to change its software policies to attract Nintendo something that they would not do.

#3. The Japanese Government. Man when one of your countries biggest companies and one of your countries biggest tax payers thinks of selling out to a company in another country. The Japanese Government would likely take action I have heard the Government is very protective over the companies in Japan. So Apple would have to convince the Japanese Government that a take over or merger would be beneficial and worth while for the Government.

#4. The share holders, sure some share holders are greedy and would sell out at the drop of a hat to a good deal from Apple. However as UbiSoft proved when EA started buying up their stock. Their are loyal share holders who have the companies best interests in mind. All it would take is Nintendo pleading to investors not to sell shares to Apple and I'm pretty sure the majority would reconsider and not sell shares to Apple. Nintendo has a very loyal user base I'm sure they have just as much of a loyal investor base as Ubi does. In other words meaning Apple could aquire some stock but would fall very short of taking over if they attempted to do so..

#5. Apple also knows that if they tried to take over or buy Nintendo that alot of the talent would jump ship. Imagine if half of Nintendo walked off the job within months of the take over? Apple would be screwed. As we saw more gradually with Rare Nintendo developers and staff aren't likely to stick around under Apple managment. Apple knows that, their purchase would only end up with facilities and intellectual properties because most of the staff would leave. Now the properties might benefit Apple but look at how Microsoft has done with all those AAA+ money making properties Rare had, nothing!

So in the end their are even more reasons a buy up by Apple would be a foolish move. I doubt Jobs would be that short sighted and I don't think a take over or merger would match either companies ways of doing buisness!

If this happened, no one would complain about the expensive Upad.

About #1, 2, 5, the article hypothesizes that Apple would keep the two businesses separated and that it's actually interested in the Nintendo business model of full priced, high sales, high profit margin games of Nintendo. Apple wouldn't waste Nintendo for 99¢ games, it would like to ADD Nintendo's business to its own, but to expand its markets, to cater for a user base Apple currently isn't able to do it effectively. If these things are guaranteed, #4 could be solved too, at least persuading the holders of the majority of the shares. The biggest hurdles so would be #3, followed by #4, persuading enough shareholders (giving them money and Apple shares could help), while for #5 Apple should just behave correctly and never try to sell devs out to cheap programming, but if Apple were really interested (it's just a hypothesis, anyway), it would never waste what's worth what it's worth because it is what it is. Apple wouldn't risk destroying what it should pay tens million $. That's the reason why I think the only danger for Ninty gamers would be Jobs' particular kind of greed, he's not greedy about SW, but he is a lot about HW, he likes it to be expensive.

Nintendo is worth some 1.56 trillion yen right now it seems, or about $20 billion. Sony is worth some $23 billion, and Apple eight times them both combined (a whooping $347 billion). Think we are still in '07?

Not that Apple is going to buy Ninty or Sony BTW. Nintendo tried to be Apple once, but they're still too different, let alone Sony and their risky marketing moves. Apple is in her own league as far as value and profits go, compared to the average electronics company. She shipped some 20 million iPhones in the last quarter to cry it out loud.

Apple is significantly bigger than Nintendo.

Apple could likely buy Nintendo.

Apple won't want to buy Nintendo.

This. BTW the article says Apple has ~$50billion cash, currently. About the undeniable differences, the author thinks Ninty would be perfect for Apple to expand to a profitable market Apple alone wouldn't be able to cater for unless it spends billions $ and decennia of time to establish strong franchises, faithful user base and brand recognition in the console market, buying Nintendo could solve the problem for a huge amount of money as doing it by itself, but saving many years and being profitable from the start.