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Comment by devmunchies | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised Netflix hasn't been buying IP owners or aggressively expanding into other entertainment channels. Imagine if they straight up acquired Nintendo (or a large part of it), the amount of movies + series they could produce (zelda series like the witcher, donkey kong animated series for kids, metroid prime series for adults, star fox, etc)

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Iirc, Nintendo has too many large shareholders to ever be acquireable. How they let Disney and Amazon purchase Marvel, Star Wars and Paramount for around 5 billion a piece without jumping in I'll never understand.

Although I don’t think that the Marvel IP would have been as valuable in Netflix’s hands. Compare all of the early Marvel shows on Netflix compared to what Disney has done with the MCU.

It may or may not have been as valuable, but Netflix could still have used it to generate tons of content. It still would have been a smart buy.

> Although I don’t think that the Marvel IP would have been as valuable in Netflix’s hands. Compare all of the early Marvel shows on Netflix compared to what Disney has done with the MCU.

I'm not sure what you're comparing. Netflix's Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Luke Cage were standouts. WandaVision and Loki are certainly flashier, but are they really better shows?

I’m not saying those shows weren’t good, just that Disney has monetized the Marvel brand really well with a long streak of movies that are printing money, and sure a few shows to promote their streaming service.

4 out for the top 5 grossing movies of all time for Disney (adjusted for inflation) are Marvel IP. By comparison none of the Marvel shows on Netflix have been a commercial hit for Netflix. Looking at the list of most watched Netflix shows none of those make the cut.

Basically Disney is well suited to turn Marvel IP into dollars and Netflix just wasn’t.

> Basically Disney is well suited to turn Marvel IP into dollars and Netflix just wasn’t.

Oh. Well, I can't argue with that, especially since Netflix almost certainly never had the necessary rights to develop a revenue stream from merchandising. There is probably no other company on Earth better suited to turning IP into dollars than Disney, especially since they've acquired Pixar, Lucasfilm, Jim Henson, Marvel, etc. Netflix has only started trying to make tentpole 'blockbuster' (irony intended) movies in the past few years.

I’m sort of on board with your argument, but might it have been different if Netflix owned Marvel instead of having a license to make a few shows?

Probably not and that is why they didn’t bid, and the Netflix execs are in a better position to know than us… but I think the comparison is a little tilted against Netflix at least.

And back catalogue stuff too. Amazon bought MGM, something netflix should have done. Paramount is launching its own service rather than Netflix buying them.

> I'm surprised Netflix hasn't been buying IP owners

I imagine they had to pay for the IP for The Witcher and Altered Carbon.

I’m thinking the comment referred to ip owners with large existing catalogues

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