Yeah Nintendo while certainly not being strap for cash and making a ton of money, wouldn't be afford to what MS just did and at best it would of been merger of both companies similar to Bandai and Namco, Koei and Tecmo, or Squaresoft and Enix rather Nintendo buying Bethesda.

Hell Sony's market cap is pretty close to Nintendo's, so I am not even sure if they could have made a move like this either.

Isn’t there some sort of anti-trust law in Japan that affects any company from buying another?
Nintendo is doing well so far with the Switch.
They’re cultivating new graduates to be part of EPD, Monolith Soft is expanding, etc.
It’ll take months (maybe years) to see all of this come into fruition.
Plus, Nintendo goes by their own philosophy and studios that are under their umbrella (or are closely affiliated with them) are going to follow suit.
If a developer doesn’t follow Nintendo’s philosophies and culture, what use can they be if Nintendo owns them? Not to mention that a developer is just that...a developer. If the people that worked on the IPs are not there..it’s not the same. Didn’t some of the main people at Rare leave said company by the time Microsoft bought them?

Well... Nintendo could. It's not like they'd go out of business if they it didn't work out, but taking that big of a gamble would probably make stockholders antsy, and if it didn't work out, there'd be major structural changes at the company. Whereas with Microsoft, they it probably won't even be the most significant thing in the company by a long shot. Sony on the other hand probably couldn't in any realistic sense.

Sony's market cap is I think something like 30 billion above Nintendo's... But that's largely based on predictions for the future.

Sony has a lot more assets than Nintendo does. Like... A LOT. But a lot of that is not in short term assets.

In terms of short term assets (cash or stuff that can become cash quickly), Nintendo has about 15 billion. Sony has about 54 billion.

But while Nintendo is basically debt free, Sony is not. They have about 46 billion in short term liabilities (debt that needs to be paid soonish). 

So... If Nintendo paid 7.5 billion for Bethesda, they'd still just be 7.5 billion dollars poorer. They'd still have enough money to do what they need to do. If Sony did the same, they'd be be left pretty strapped. They'd still be able to pay whatever they needed to in the near term, but they'd only have about 500,000,000 left to launch the PS5, fund development, pay life insurance, and whatever else they do as a company. They wouldn't have much of a cushion to fall back on if something went wrong, and they'd be in debt as a company if it didn't work out, which is generally not a good thing. Especially since Sony's been doing a good job digging themselves out of a hole recently, I don't think they'd do that.

There’s no need for Nintendo to buy other studios. Microsoft is literally playing catch up because they lack compelling software/exclusives for their platform. Nintendo first party team and partners have been solid since the dawn of time lol.

Here’s the deal. Nintendo is currently in the process of expanding their ips to other media. (films/TVs and theme parks). Nintendo already has a portfolio of iconic characters and games. The next step is to expand not in video games but elsewhere.
Sony and Microsoft will follow suit in the future just like they did with internal studios and directs lol.

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/73918/nintendo-has-3-8-million-shares-in-bandai-namco-worth-186/index.html

Nintendo invests not buys. They have 4 million shares in Bandai Namco. I'd be fine if they invested in Platinum or other close partners. Just not outright buy.

Nintendo doesn't need to, honestly. Their IPs are incredibly strong, pretty much nothing is on par with those. Just look at the performance of the MK8 port or Animal Crossing. They are massive. Nintendo is doing it's best when they don't follow trends, but they do their own thing. I think they should continue with this strategy.

I can see Nintendo acquiring studios, but not publishing companies.

Monolithsoft and Nintendo was a unique situation thanks largely to long-time friendship between members of the studio and Nintendo’s Shinji Hatano. Hatano was the point guy with Square, and was also largely responsible for repairing relations with them after the Yamauchi caused disaster.

Hatano remained friends with members of the Monolithsoft team, and remained close with them on a business level because he was also the point guy with Namco - he had a very good eye for talent, as he also became acquainted with the Soul Caliber team and was responsible for bringing the deal with Nintendo together.

Monolithsoft became unhappy with after a change in leadership at Namco brought new business goal directions that really put a strain on their creativity. Hatano told Monolithsoft to keep creating their unique games. Then Monolithsoft broke up with Namco and married into the Nintendo dynasty.

If you don't eat your reserves it comes down to your capacity to borrow, so Sony and Nintendo would be fine plus market cap isn't the be all and end all of a company's worth , the market now tends to downgrade what it sees as conglomerates and they are quite often capped at way less value than what the the sum of their parts and profitability would suggest, that's why Sony now is valued at nearly a third of what it was when  valued at 200 billion, and analysts say that conglomerate stock downgrading is why despite a turn around that has produced record profits over the S200 billion version Sony's market cap isn't being met with the same type of rise that other stocks show.

I don't mind nintendo getting some additional IPs, but then again they already ignore many of their own

I didn't say market cap was the be all end all, or really say much about it at all.

Sony may or may not be fine if they spent 7.5 billion. They would have to do so by taking on more long term debt. Right now, their current liabilities exceed their current debts (my numbers before was off). Considering the money they've been making, that's probably fine for now, but if they hit a slump, they would have to borrow some money (or convert some long term assets) to pay their bills. Adding another 7.5 billion of long term debt on top of that could put them in a rough spot, and would leave them at a risk to become insolvent which is not a great spot to be in.