1 - It would be bad for everyone. Nintendo would be buying some sort of Rare and Sega would lose their freedom.

2 - HVS is not trying to become a 2nd party. They want to level up and establish themselves as a high quality independent developer. Most of the shovelware they made can be credited to big name publishers trying to make a quick buck. They are not a bad developer, I have played a lot of their game and I can say that most of their shovelware is surprisingly average to good. They also got some of the most talented writers in the whole industry (see Harvey Birdman and Leisure Suit Larry MCL dialogue).

@ __XBrawlX__ )

if Ninty needed another Shooter Miyamoto would make one, but he choose not to - no need to buy some nameless, but relatively expensive studio for an IP, that has less power than any project Miyamoto would announce at E3 or whatever

and the graphics engine isn't really far beyond all what Ninty can do on their own plattform either, so they wouldn't really profit from the technical aspect in my opinion

I doubt High Voltage wants to be bought out in such a fasion. I'm pretty sure that Conduit is not the be all end all for HV. HV made an engine. Conduit is only a practicle game demo for that engine. It's really just a showcase game. I'm sure the developers are putting their heart into the game, but it's sole success isn't mandatory for the company. So even if Conduit doesn't sell truck loads it's job is still done. To have good looking games on the Wii and licsense the engine to make money. It's a smart move as it will bring in a steady stream of income rather than just burst income. HV is paving it's road to personal success and be like Epic.

The only reason I could see for Nintendo to buy Sega is to block MS from doing so. Sega IPs would be worth a lot, especially in Nintendo's hands but I'd also expect them to sell off a lot of Sega too, probably to MS...

As for High Voltage, until the Conduit lives up to it's rather unjustified hype, that company is of no real value to anyone. It Nintendo wants a strong western developer for FPS and such there's a lot better options out there than High Voltage. Like Bungie...

The reason to choose a company like High Voltage over Bungie is the same reason Nintendo bought Retro rather than Valve ... A small unknown developer will cost a fraction of the cost of a well known developer (potentially 10% of the cost), its talented developers are less likely to leave the company upon being bought (because they will probably see it as a good thing), and you're much more likely to be successful at making changes to improve quality and profitability of the company without causing internal problems within the company.

Nintendo wouldn't be the least bit interested in purchasing Sega: they turned down the last opportunity to do so, they're already getting plenty of Sega support, they don't share "Nintendo DNA", and most importantly Sega is weighed down by the titanic anchor that is Sammy. If you can sever Sega from Sammy, then the deal's a bit more attractive, but if Sega could do that, it wouldn't be in a position to be bought.

High Voltage...let's just say a "wait and see" attitude is called for here.