Platinum games because nintendo has a close relation ship with them.

And how many studios have been bought by Nintendo? 3 (Rare, Retro and Monolith)?

I don't know with Monolith or Rare (which Nintendo "only" had the 49% of it) but when they bought Retro a lot of people were laid off because the studio was mismanaged and a lot of projects were cancelled, and years later 3 of the big heads of Retro also left the studio.

Besides, the fact that something hasn't happened before doesn't guarantee that it won't happen in the future.

Level 5

Cmon nintendo!

If Nintendo had the money to buy Infinity Ward that money would be better spent in EA Sports.

I'd much rather see Nintendo jump for Platinum, Mistwalker or Next Level. Hell, why not go mad and buy all three?

HAL Laboratories was bought by Nintendo, too. It was an independent company, it developed the Kirby franchise before Nintendo bought them. Indeed, HAL Laboratories is more of an example of a studio bought by Nintendo than Retro is, because Retro was set up partially by Nintendo in the first place, whereas HAL started off as an actual independent studio.

And look at that - one of the two "big heads" of HAL ended up becoming the president of the entire company.

Meanwhile, according to the history section of the wikipedia entry for Retro, the layoffs occurred before Nintendo bought stock in Retro - the layoffs happened in 2001, and Nintendo bought Retro in 2002. The cancellations were of projects that Nintendo were funding already, and they were cancelled because they weren't good enough. Not sure who the third of the "big heads of Retro" is - there's Spangenberg, who was the original president, and Barcia, who Nintendo appointed to replace him after he (Spangenberg, that is) became derelict in his duties. Barcia was appointed from within Retro. Some ex-Retro employees blame Barcia's mismanagement for their departure (try to find one blaming Nintendo's 'meddling'). Barcia was replaced by the current president, Kelbaugh.

And the fact that it hasn't happened before means that you shouldn't assume that it is guaranteed to happen in the future. You're the one claiming that Nintendo buying a studio would necessarily result in the studio falling apart due to Nintendo imposing their philosophies on the studio. The mere fact that one time it failed to happen is enough to disprove your assertion - I don't need to disprove every case, I need only provide a single counterexample.

The fact that there's no example of it actually happening is the more important one, though. Rare didn't fall apart under Nintendo. Retro didn't fall apart under Nintendo. Monolith Soft doesn't appear to have fallen apart under Nintendo. HAL Labs certainly didn't fall apart under Nintendo.

Fair enough, I didn't remember HAL and maybe others, that's why I put the "?".

I meant Mark Pacini, designer, Todd Keller, art director, and Jack Mathews, principal technology engineer. Three of the big names inside Retro and responsibles of making the Metroid Prime games what they are.

 I'm not saying that it would happen. What I'm saying is that it MAY or not happen and that the risk is not worth it. Things have changed and now it's possible to make a living from videogames without big publishers. That makes the option of leaving a studio easier than it was before.

Just look what heppened to Capcom with so many highly renowned devs leaving to make their own studios, Epic with Cliff B or Msoft with Peter Molyneux.

Monolith Soft was made up of ex Square Enix employees that had gotten fame via their work on Xenogears and went in with Namco, where they produced the Xenosaga games and a few other RPGs. Nintendo somehow got involved and slowly but surely started to absorb the company with Namco's blessing until it became Nintendo's second party developer save the occasional project for Namco Bandai. Honest if Xenosaga hadn't turned out so great I would have said Mistwalker would be a great pick up, but Nintendo already has more then a few developers that can handle crafting a RPG for them besides even Monolith Soft.

Platinum Games would be great but unlikely, especially if Metal Gear Rising, Wonderful 101 or Bayonetta 2 are even moderately successful, as that will no doubt bring in a new infusion of cash their previous independent games failed to garner. Level 5 has become too large of a independent 3rd party especially in Japan. I'd say a studio they probably could take on would Suda 51's Grasshopper Manufacture would be a good pick up for Nintendo their mature and off the wall games would be solid for them as would WayForward for developing 2D games for either eShop or the 3DS.

Just to help a bit, Nintendo owns the following studios:

Retro
Hal Laboratory
Monolith
ND Cube
Intelligent Systems

Only 5 were acquired by Nintendo, they have many others that mainly develop for Nintendo though.

I would personally be happy if Nintendo acquired Platinum Games

?

Intelligent Systems weren't bought they were an internal team formed by Nintendo which was headed by Toru Narihiro, they became IS when the company restructured back in the 90s.