When Microsoft bought Bethesda, we awaited Sony’s response. When Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard, an even more earth-shattering acquisition, we became even more curious about a potential PlayStation counter to Xbox’s growing list of exclusive studios. Well, Sony made a move. The company announced it’s purchasing Bungie, the developer behind Destiny.
Deals like this take months to come together, so there’s no way this is a direct response to the Microsoft/Activision Blizzard purchase. Still, it’s hard to resist that narrative. Xbox scoops up beloved shooter Call of Duty, PlayStation locks down beloved shooter Destiny. Microsoft buys former PlayStation mascot Crash Bandicoot, Sony buys the former Microsoft subsidiary and Halo creators, the minds behind the game that single-handedly saved the Xbox.
Sony’s $3.6 billion Bungie purchase may not be nearly as large as Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision Blizzard deal, but it poured more fuel on the fire that is the video game industry’s rampant, giant mergers and acquisitions. Hours after this news broke, the New York Times announced it purchased Wordle. Every company wants to beef up their content offerings. But, corporate consolidation isn’t exciting—it’s awful.
Microsoft and Sony are two, huge video game brands, but there’s another name that hasn’t been part of the acquisition-related news: Nintendo. Fortunately, Nintendo doesn’t need to buy anyone.
Nintendo Is Already Legion
We view Nintendo as a singular entity, because its games share such singular qualities. Zelda, Mario, and Metroid may feature vastly different gameplay and art styles, but they all feel like Nintendo games thanks to their quality and craft. Nintendo games are classic and creative, fun for families and veteran players, alike.
Nintendo is a gigantic company already overseeing many different teams. It has more than 6,500 employees. A specific group works on Zelda games. Another development team handles 3D Mario titles, while their colleagues work on the next Mario Kart or Animal Crossing. Nintendo devotes entire divisions to researching the next hardware platform. Shigeru Miyamaoto hand-picks fellow weirdos to work on new experiments. Intelligent Systems, the folks behind Fire Emblem and WarioWare, moved to a new building right next to Nintendo HQ.
Like Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo also isn’t above purchasing companies outright. Nintendo recently bought Next Level Games, after its impressive work on Luigi’s Mansion 3. Metroid Prime’s Retro Studios belongs to Nintendo, a Texan team owned by the Japanese. NDCube exists to make Mario Party. Monolith Soft doesn’t just pump out Xenoblade games, it applies its open-world knowledge to all sorts of Nintendo projects. Explaining how Nintendo almost, but not really, owns Pokemon would require a whole separate story. Heck, Nintendo used to have a major stake in Rare before Microsoft bought it. These studios lack Bungie and Naughty Dog’s brand recognition, perhaps because their Nintendo games are so much more famous.
However, more often than not, Nintendo prefers to partner with outside studios when making new games, rather than buying the studio outright. It’s a win-win. Metroid Dread developer MercurySteam gets handed the keys to a legendary franchise, while still keeping its autonomy. Nintendo can let Camelot make Mario sports games without being financially responsible for the company’s entire well-being. Sure, PlatinumGames made a bad Star Fox game, but that doesn’t make Bayonetta any less fantastic.
Nintendo games get fresh voices, studios keep their freedom. Even Masahiro Sakurai—the mastermind behind the most Nintendo-tastic Nintendo game there is, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate—is technically a free agent who only works with the company because he chooses to d so. You can run a thriving game company without gobbling up everyone in sight. Restraint isn’t weakness, it’s a virtue.
People call Nintendo the Disney of gaming because of its commitment to high-quality, family-friendly entertainment starring classic characters. However, when you look at how much harm Disney does to the movie industry as it expands into an all-encompassing behemoth, that’s an insult to Nintendo.
Belly of the Beast
The acquisition race between Microsoft and Sony is the most dramatic mutation of the console war we’ve ever seen. Nintendo conscientiously objecting would continue the company’s tradition of rejecting the worst industry trends. “Nintendo does its own thing,” everyone says. Nintendo is too stubborn and weird and prideful to follow the pack. I’m not going to say this never frustrates players, but at this point I strongly believe that Nintendo sticking to its guns is in the industry’s best interest.
Pundits clamor about Nintendo going third-party, because that worked so well for Sega. Folks demand to see Nintendo games on more powerful consoles, as if Nintendo’s games aren’t specifically designed to get the most from its own hardware. Maybe someone should acquire Nintendo, and add an extra management layer to second-guess its iconoclastic decisions. I made this analogy in my Wordle column, but it applies here, too. Nintendo is an unwieldy goose that lays golden eggs. Don’t get greedy only to slaughter it.
Different doesn’t always mean better. Nintendo’s desire to stand out led to the Wii U’s mega flop. Learning from that experience led to the Nintendo Switch’s mega success. The handheld/console hybrid is on track to sell more than 100 million units because it offers a wonderful gaming experience that absolutely no one gaming machine does right now (at least until the Steam Deck launches). If anything, Nintendo disappoints the most when it tries and fails to emulate others, such as charging for a mediocre online subscription, bowing to shareholder pressure to make exploitative mobile games, or conscripting the creative geniuses behind Minions for the CGI Super Mario movie. Nintendo buying more studios just to keep up with Microsoft and Sony goes against what makes Nintendo so vital to the video game industry.
Live and Let Live
Would I complain if Nintendo locked down a great partner like Grezzo, or poured more resources into Game Freak to make Pokemon games really shine? Probably not. But I just don’t want to see my favorite gaming company, one that brings so much creativity and singular innovation, get sucked into a destructive race to the bottom to see who can merge into the biggest monopoly the fastest. That stifles innovation, and probably needs to be more heavily scrutinized by the government.
Let video game companies exist without swallowing, or being swallowed by, other companies. Let Nintendo do, or not do, its own thing. That said, Nintendo should totally buy that little company ViacomCBS, if only to give us the Super Smash Bros. vs. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl crossover we deserve.
