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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nintendo "laughed their assess off" when Microsoft tried to acquire the company in 2000

Darwinianevolution said:
HoangNhatAnh said:

Bold 1 & 2: GC helped Nin making more profit than Sony in 6th gen.

Those numbers always confuse me. How did Sony manage to earn less money than Nintendo when the PS2 sold more than the GBA and the GC combined by so much? Hell, it's not even a small margin, between 2004 and 2006 there's a significant difference in profits. I get that Nintendo's 1st party titles sell really well and are very profitable, but by that much?

I will give you the run down.

Between 2004 and 2006 Sony had significant R&D for PSP and PS3. There was no handheld before the PSP so any money used to make that was just straight losses. PS2 was trying to cover for the PS3, but as we know the PS3 was a very expensive console to make. You can see even the PS1 era was more profitable than the PS2 era due to R&D for the PSP and PS3.

PS2 only got such high sales due to it's extremely cheap price. We can see Sony completely shift their mindset with later years PS4 getting 0 pricecuts, and thus more profit than the PS2 days. But it won't outsell the PS2 anytime.

And it is true that at that time Sony's first party SW didn't sell that well aside from Gran Turismo.



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Farsala said:
Darwinianevolution said:

Those numbers always confuse me. How did Sony manage to earn less money than Nintendo when the PS2 sold more than the GBA and the GC combined by so much? Hell, it's not even a small margin, between 2004 and 2006 there's a significant difference in profits. I get that Nintendo's 1st party titles sell really well and are very profitable, but by that much?

I will give you the run down.

Between 2004 and 2006 Sony had significant R&D for PSP and PS3. There was no handheld before the PSP so any money used to make that was just straight losses. PS2 was trying to cover for the PS3, but as we know the PS3 was a very expensive console to make. You can see even the PS1 era was more profitable than the PS2 era due to R&D for the PSP and PS3.

PS2 only got such high sales due to it's extremely cheap price. We can see Sony completely shift their mindset with later years PS4 getting 0 pricecuts, and thus more profit than the PS2 days. But it won't outsell the PS2 anytime.

And it is true that at that time Sony's first party SW didn't sell that well aside from Gran Turismo.

So the developing costs of the PS3 were that expensive? The hole the PS3 made in Sony's finances trully was monumental, I cannot recall many products that costed so much and lost so much money. I can't imagine Sony's gaming division being able to justify itself without the PSP's help after that.



You know it deserves the GOTY.

Come join The 2018 Obscure Game Monthly Review Thread.

Darwinianevolution said:

Those numbers always confuse me. How did Sony manage to earn less money than Nintendo when the PS2 sold more than the GBA and the GC combined by so much? Hell, it's not even a small margin, between 2004 and 2006 there's a significant difference in profits. I get that Nintendo's 1st party titles sell really well and are very profitable, but by that much?

PS2 was sold at a loss in order to have a cheaper price while the development of the PSP and PS3 also ate up costs when it did start to break even, GBA and GC weren't sold at losses and Nintendo has a different licensing structure for software on their platform so the sales on their side were just straight profit in comparison. PSP sold at a loss as well but unlike the PS2 which made up with high software numbers the rampant piracy and homebrew stopped the former doing the same hence why most developers avoided the PSP.



Yeah people tend to forget just how much of a catastrophe the PS3 was in terms of money lost, over its first few years it was like a severed artery within Sony bleeding billions of dollars.



Alby_da_Wolf said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

This story makes me laugh my ass off. It gets better when you read the details. "We (Microsoft) will handle the hardware and you (Nintendo) make the software." LOL, I would rather buy hardware from Nintendo every single time. RROD anyone?

Microsoft had nothing to offer Nintendo except an unrealistically inflated ego.

And as much unrealistically, MS thinks it could become again bigger than Apple and as much control freak on users keeping on being as sloppy as it is, because the bloody specifications mess it uses to keep monopoly on PC OS and office suite can't be defined anything else than sloppy, lazy and cowardly (luckily at least OS monopoly has been broken by marginalization of PC outside of office and power gaming market and the rise amongst casual users of mobile market with the Apple-Android duopoly).

Yeah a lot of guys  didn't get to experience a lot of the shitshow that microsoft was in 2000 (and in certain areas still are), the Windows OSes were a complete mess, the monopoly they formed with intel on the desktop PC market at the time didn't help the developement of PC's due to Pentium processors being ass, Office and a lot of the software of microsoft was in reality made up of stitched programs and patches they bought or acquired of others and at times ended up bloating the package, they basically have run a lot of things to extintion like the Visual Basic programming languague, hotmail.com etc, and in gaming isn't that what has happened to a degree to some of their acquisitions? And as others have said i also knew lots of people that bought 2 or 3 Xbox360's due to getting the RROD, but i guess there are still people that have the opinion that Nintendo should have sold their properties instead of using unpowered hardware, because microsoft can take the hit of selling consoles at loss even if said consoles were prone to fail.



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Darwinianevolution said:
HoangNhatAnh said:

Bold 1 & 2: GC helped Nin making more profit than Sony in 6th gen.

Those numbers always confuse me. How did Sony manage to earn less money than Nintendo when the PS2 sold more than the GBA and the GC combined by so much? Hell, it's not even a small margin, between 2004 and 2006 there's a significant difference in profits. I get that Nintendo's 1st party titles sell really well and are very profitable, but by that much?

One of the main reasons is 1st party games sales of GC and GBA. They made the sales of ps2 1st party games look like nothing. Besides, PS3 era made Sony lose too much money.

Last edited by HoangNhatAnh - on 10 January 2021

HoangNhatAnh said:
Metallox said:

Gears games have substantially changed, bud, and for the worse. 

Your Melia avatar would have never been existed if MS really got Nin at that time, you know.

Jumpin said:

Gamecube also lost Nintendo a lot of money. But Nintendo could still turn a small profit thanks in part to the booming handheld business from Gameboy, GBA, GBA SP, and DS during that time.

Jumpin said:

No it didn't. If Gamecube made a profit, Nintendo would have made significantly more money than it did. The home console business cut heavily into the profits turned by the handheld division.

Bold 1 & 2: GC helped Nin making more profit than Sony in 6th gen.

I'm on mobile so I can't snip, sorry for that. So, from what I understand, relations between executives of Namco Bandai and and of Monolith were dwindling significantly after Xenosaga 3, but are we sure Monolith wouldn't have been able to pitch the project to the company or other publisher nonetheless? What I'm absolutely certain of is that Chronicles X wouldn't have happened, so I'm eternally grateful that Nintendo bought the company. 



My bet with The_Liquid_Laser: I think the Switch won't surpass the PS2 as the best selling system of all time. If it does, I'll play a game of a list that The_Liquid_Laser will provide, I will have to play it for 50 hours or complete it, whatever comes first. 

Metallox said:

I'm on mobile so I can't snip, sorry for that. So, from what I understand, relations between executives of Namco Bandai and and of Monolith were dwindling significantly after Xenosaga 3, but are we sure Monolith wouldn't have been able to pitch the project to the company or other publisher nonetheless? What I'm absolutely certain of is that Chronicles X wouldn't have happened, so I'm eternally grateful that Nintendo bought the company. 

The project at that point had failed twice once with Square and again with Namco both big publisher other publishers weren't going to pick it up at that point after all look at Bayonetta it got pitched to everyone and was turned away until Nintendo who were the last remaining publisher. Even in the off chance the pitch got accepted looking at what happened with Scalebound MS interfered in the development to try and hit an audience the game was never aimed at with the forced multiplayer so very likely wouldn't be the same game as Takahashi noted to his surprise Nintendo were the only developer to give him as much freedom and time he needed.



Metallox said:
HoangNhatAnh said:

Your Melia avatar would have never been existed if MS really got Nin at that time, you know.

Jumpin said:

Gamecube also lost Nintendo a lot of money. But Nintendo could still turn a small profit thanks in part to the booming handheld business from Gameboy, GBA, GBA SP, and DS during that time.

Bold 1 & 2: GC helped Nin making more profit than Sony in 6th gen.

I'm on mobile so I can't snip, sorry for that. So, from what I understand, relations between executives of Namco Bandai and and of Monolith were dwindling significantly after Xenosaga 3, but are we sure Monolith wouldn't have been able to pitch the project to the company or other publisher nonetheless? What I'm absolutely certain of is that Chronicles X wouldn't have happened, so I'm eternally grateful that Nintendo bought the company. 

If MS really got Nin, after Xenogears and Xenosaga trilogy failure, they could even allow Nin to buy Monolith Soft, well, that's already a miracle, let alone giving the green light for somethings like Xenoblade and Soma Bringer, maybe Disaster Days of Crisis at best. 

Last edited by HoangNhatAnh - on 11 January 2021

B6a6es said:
HoangNhatAnh said:

Japanese Gov is notoriously unwelcoming toward foreign entities owning anything japanese and corporate.

Wman1996 said:

Classic Nintendo arrogance. There haughtiness is even more pathetic when you realize...

The Nintendo 64 underperformed
The GameCube was their worst-selling home console to date, and apparently barely broke even.
The Wii U tanked and the 3DS sold only about half of the units of the DS and even fell short of the GBA. All this after the titanic double threat of the DS and Wii.

Nintendo would laugh even if their hardware was failing and the same proposition was made. As long as they have billions in the banks and keep their executives rich, that's all that matters to them. I don't think Nintendo will be bought out. I just think they'll eventually stop making hardware in the 2030s or 2040s and move over to PCs and smart devices.

Where are NES,SNES,GB,GBA,Switch?

Also, PS3 + PSP > PS4 + Vita, your point now?

Xbox is about to bleed even more money, thanks to the Shitshow that is Game Pass & Xbox all access.

like its too big to fail at this point, and I honestly dont know how much they paid all these 3rd parties to bring their games for a service that costs 1$ for 3 Months !!!!

I wouldn't be worried about MS bleeding money. Both MS and Sony are making Billions in Subscribers to easily pay the difference. GamePass is just another avenue for MS to earn billions long term. Something these charts don't mention.

Last edited by Azzanation - on 12 January 2021