By Frank Ling, GN Senior Writer
There has been a lot of buzz concerning a possible Apple buyout of Nintendo. The first showing of this story originated from CNET on a piece concerning Apple looking at Nintendo as a possible acquisition. While the story was highly speculative at best and unfounded at worst, it nonetheless caused a great deal of buzz on the news channels and internet. CNET also released a story earlier this year about a take over by Cisco over Nintendo and defended its present story by saying, "Cisco was rumored to be looking at a purchase of Nintendo earlier in the year, so the idea of Nintendo being bought is not outlandish in itself." While reporting a rumor to justify reporting a rumor is somewhat cyclical, the Apple-Nintendo story has had many wondering about the reality of such a thing happening.
According to David Cole, CEO of game research firm DFC Intelligence, the reports may be only words and nothing else. Cole told Game Daily "[The rumor] does sound pretty crazy. You know for years and years it was like Nintendo and Sega were going to merge any day… Obviously Nintendo has done really well in terms of their profitability and their market value has really held up—if you go back and look at how their market value has held up over this past generation compared to, say Sony and Microsoft, who have seen drastic declines in their market value. And if you consider that Nintendo was considered sort of the loser in the last generation, and now they've got the opportunity to go into a new generation and restart their market share… clearly, it might not be the best time from their side to be looking to sell."
Translation: Microsoft and Sony are down. Nintendo is up. They’d be crazy to sell.
Cole continued this view by stating “You would think if they were looking to sell it would be more if the Wii came out and was a huge flop; then maybe you'd start talking more about those types of rumors, but clearly it's very speculative. When you're talking about mergers of that size, there's always so many moving parts, especially when you've got an established Japanese company possibly merging with a North American company—and that's always just very speculative. Even if they start talks, it's just months and months of trying to get together and oftentimes they just clash at the last minute. But people are always going to be speculating."
So does that mean the rumor is just a rumor? Apparently in the arena of big business, talks often take place which go nowhere. Companies are constantly sending feelers out to one another with the expectation that the offers will get turned down. Cole said, “[Apple] could start reaching out to see if Nintendo is interested, and then they say no. That would probably be the most likely scenario that I would see. You know, companies are always talking with each other… which can lead to rumors and speculation. It just goes on all the time. The chance of something actually getting finalized is a totally different ballgame."
