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Comment by largote | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft should buy out Nintendo, make its games and franchises available for Xbox & PC, and sell the specialty Nintendo hardware like the WiiMote or that TabletController as accessories. It could also roll Kinect under the Nintendo add-on brand.

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I hope not. Their cultures are so different they would each implode.

I'm curious, has anything ever improved as a result of being bought by Microsoft?

Depends on how you look at it. With games: Minecraft and Halo didn't get any worse so far. On the business side, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SQL Server, and Analysis Services all got better, often to the point you don't remember them NOT being Microsoft products anymore. Microsoft also created a better Java, they just called it C# (ok, a bit snarky in that last one)

Point taken, but don't forget about Rare.

That's an excellent point and very relevant. Rare was a Nintendo "second party" developer (Nintendo exclusive developer but not officially owned by Nintendo) who produced tons of classic games for Nintendo and was very successful. Battletoads, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie, Donkey Kong Country, etc.

They then started looking to be bought out (hoping to be bought by Nintendo) but Microsoft ultimately bought them. After moving to Microsoft, they made Perfect Dark Zero (terrible), Viva Piñata (unsuccessful), Kinect Sports (moderate success), and a single possible bright spot, the upcoming Sea of Thieves that's looking pretty good.

Rare is a great example of how Nintendo and Microsoft differ and why it wouldn't necessarily be a huge success.

actually this is more about the fact that company acquisitions dont add value. its frustrating but $MSFT is not more likely than others.

83% dont add value https://www.group50.com/mergers-acquisitions-shareholder-val... many more on https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=company%20acquis...

When was Word ever not a Microsoft product?

Microsoft acquired a word processing company, and the owner claims that became word. I can't remember the company, and there isn't as much lore around it as the qdos purchase.

Bravo? I Guess he bought the code with him because MS hired him to write Multi Word Tool which later became Word.

Halo might have done well but I mourn the death of all of Bungie's [0] other [1] franchises [2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_(video_game)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni_(video_game)

Halo is basically an extension of the Marathon storyline. I do miss Myth and Oni though.

Judging by the stock of late I would say the wealth of their shareholders. Which is the actual goal of a corporation as opposed to improving products after acquisition which is just one of many possible means to that goal.

I could see Nintendo and Apple's cultures much more closely aligning...

Please no.

Simply brilliant

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