Yeah pretty sure Iwata meant non-gaming mergers & aquistions for other businesses (like sleep sensors and what not). 

People need to understand something as well -- Nintendo doesn't *want* to expand. They don't want to be any bigger than they are. They feel they would lose their culture if they expanded too much. 

I don't think Sega's IP in this day and age have much relevance anymore to the mass market gamer anyway. Not even if they were well done ... Nintendo has trouble selling a lot of their own IP even though the games are great (Pikmin 3, DKC: TF, etc.), why would they fare any better with Sega IP? 

This was a pretty great post with quite a few good ideas; my favorite one being to make Ghost n Goblins into a hardcore franchise akin to Dark souls

Sony doesn't have the money to pull off an aquistion like that. Starting cost for Nintendo would be $25 billion, probably realistically $30-$35 billion because these types of takeovers end up costing more than just book value. 

Sony doesn't have that kind of cash, they themselves probably aren't even worth that much. 

I think if Nintendo were ever up for any type of sale it would come down to Apple Vs. Disney with maybe Google getting in the middle knowing Apple's interest. 

I want the Playstation to be spin-off and then merged with Ninty. That would cause an major internet meltdown and celebration at the same time. lol!

I see lots of people are voting for Capcom. To be honest, I don't think it would be an effective acquisition.
Capcom atm is crap and probably needs an internal reorganization, Nintendo doesn't have the resources and the install base to even properly support its own IPs (F-zero, metroid, Starfox, etc.), let alone Capcom IPs.

Imo what would make more sense form the options suggested, would be a spinoff of the Xbox division to merge with Nintendo. They would complete each other, MS has excellent 3rd party support but they don't have enough 1st party studios to compete with Sony, on the other hand Nintendo has stellar 1st party games and abysmal 3rd party support. MS is strong in west, while Nintendo is strong in japan. A MS-Nintendo console would have the strongest selection of multipalyer IPs (local and online - 1st party and 3rd party) COD, Halo, Gears, Kart, Smash Bros, Killer Instinct. It would have both M rated games and family games.

On the other hand a merge with Sony would be more problematic imo. First, while MS and Nintendo have the multiplayer value in common, Sony 1st party IPs are more about cinematic experiences, quite the opposite of what Nintendo is offering. More importanly, Sony and Nintendo on the same boat would have just too many 1st party studios and IPs, this would just create the same situation of WiiU where palyer would only buy high-quality 1st party games while overlooking 3rd party games. In the end, Sony or Nintendo (or both) would have to cut their own content and 1st party studios in order to leave more opportunities to 3rd party companies.

^this.  People keep thinking nintendo can only do one of this options but they could easyly do all. Not just that, they need to do all of this, they are not in a position where one good buyout or expansion would turn things around. They have to many gaps that canot be filled with just one other company. Especially since like another mentioned that if a buyout happened, a lot of devs would see that as an oportunity to leave and make their own studios, then they would just end up buying the ips.

Although all this things would have a small impact on the short term. Maybe starting in 2 years we could see the rewards of them doing all theese purchases and who knows the state the wii u or 3ds will be by then. They could bring out a lot of great things late gen for the wii u and it will be afective like sony did late gen with the ps3, but the real benefit now would be next gen. At the start of the next console they would be killing it with all the great ips they can have right at the start and going throuout the entire gen.

So expanding the studios would be the best short term solution to get the most ips now, but the buyouts would be the best for the next gen.

Let me ask you this. If you could, would you lend money to Nintendo to buy Sony or to Sony to buy Nintendo? Cause one looks like a more stable company than the other. Keep in mind Sony is buried in debt already.

With that said i guess i am not clear about something. I mean SCE. Sony as a whole is useless for anyone to get unless they just close it down.

I agree.Securing man power from other companies is a great way to increase number of games. And I think Expanding thier existing studios would be great for long term. 

Its not about size, its about available cash and Sony doesn't have much... 

Studios like Capcom are well past their prime and don't have much to offer. Nintendo already has exclusivity over Monster Hunter, the only other two franchises that Capcom really has of note (sales wise) is Resident Evil and Street Fighter, and both of those are tired and old IP. Nintendo had RE exclusivity during the GameCube too and it didn't do sh*t for sales, the main fanbase of that IP is on the Playstation and they're not going to buy a Nintendo system just for Resident Evil.

Nintendo will never rubber stamp a massive expansion of their dev studios either. They don't want to be much bigger than what they are now.

I'd say it would be smarter to add a 150-ish person team in the US and one more 150 person team in Europe. Also continue to work with Platinum Games and Next Level Games. 

I'd also buy the Bayonetta IP outright. Yes it's never going to be a huge seller, but it's something they can at least build with.

I'd buy rights to the Bond IP too or at least for some console exclusives (maybe a clause that Bond FPS can only be on Nintendo systems).