Nintendo Has No Interest In Acquisitions

Is it unfair to say finally? No more acquisition news of the billion-dollar kind and no NFT article where I shout at the wall of stupidity. I’m just going to praise Nintendo for not doing something stupid. According to Bloomberg (via a paywall), Nintendo’s President Shuntaro Furukawa stated several things in its investors call recently, including a note on Sony and Microsoft buying up studios. The two most recent acquisitions are, of course, Activision/Blizzard|King and Bungie. However, according to Furukawa, the company is not in the business of making ridiculous acquisitions for more money than you or I could make in several hundred lifetimes.

The quote that came from the investors call from Furukawa states (translated by Bloomberg), “Our brand was built upon products crafted with dedication by our employees, and having a large number of people who don’t possess Nintendo DNA in our group would not be a plus to the company.” However, it was stated by Furukawa that the company wouldn’t be against acquisitions if it was deemed necessary. Nintendo’s most recent buy was Canadian developer Next Level Games, the studio behind Luigi’s Mansion 3, back in January of last year. Not that the company is as easy throwing money around either, studios like Retro or Monolith Soft come from the mid-00s.

While Nintendo is the old man in the “console wars” race, it isn’t spending that retirement fund as flagrantly as Microsoft and Sony are. This is something that seems to be benefiting Nintendo as it also announced sales figures of its latest console, the Nintendo Switch. Finally surpassing the mid-00s prince of the Nintendo hill, the Wii, with a reported 103.54 million units sold, coming up short to the DS-family’s 154 million. Though as Nintendo announced this news, it was also commented that the current semiconductor chip shortage plaguing the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S supply chain will influence the Nintendo Switch sales also.