If Nintendo went belly up today, Microsoft would buy them.
That'd be kind of sad.
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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If Microsoft went belly up today, the retro community and linux community would have a field day.
Oracle or someone worse would buy them. That's how capitalism works.
If Oracle went belly up the world would unite in peace and harmony.
99% of the world has no idea who that is.
What are you talking about? Java runs on millions of devices!
Pff, millions? How about 3 billions!
Most people dont even know what an OS is, nevermind java. (Insert relevant xkcd here).
Really goes a long way to show how impactful their ceaseistance will be, eh?
These days Microsoft are a major contributor to the Linux kernel, though. Sure, they're trying to hold onto the desktop but on the server they've pretty much switched camps.
Considering the difficulties Microsoft had buying up Activision, I don't think they will be allowed to buy up another game company of any remotely big size.
Now that trumps in charge. Microsoft could buy the Whitehouse and no one would bat an eyelash.
Funny, but aside from that they will also need approval in Europe and some other countries.
If nintendo went bankrupt, their assets and ip would be bought by some other company, and they'd be the ones bringing the lawyers.
Yeah I don't know about that. A company with that much IP would just sell rights to the highest bidder and stay afloat for ages. If Nintendo sells even just one of their main franchises like Mario, Zelda, Pokémon etc they're gonna be fine for a long time and someone else is gonna sue the emulator guys all the same.
For example Sega, who went basically belly-up decades ago just sued Memento Mori devs for copyright infringement of in-game mechanics.
Can you imagine a word without lawyers?
shudder
Eh it's not like they've seriously stopped anything. There's still plenty of forks of all the emulators they took down and there's still plenty of places to download games. Nintendo is fighting a hydra and it's likely just costing them more money and sales by fighting these scenes.
We may finally see a good Pokémon game.
Said it before, I'll say it again: I wish Nintendo would go the way of Sega. Make video games, get outta the hardware game. They make good games, and while briefly I was enamored by the switch, their track record with consoles is hit and miss. I'm tired of buying new systems for Zelda, it's basically all I play on Nintendo (though, I'm not a big gamer, so probably not most representative example). Give us Nintendo games on PC, Xbox, PlayStation.
Their track record on consoles is hit or miss because they don't make the same product every generation like Sony and Microsoft. For every Wii and Switch, you get a Wii. U and Virtual Boy. They're shitty with their IP, but hardware development is literally the best thing they do.
Disagree with the consoles bit, with a caveat; their handheld consoles are always the best in the space (gameboy, DS, switch). I'd be up for them focusing on this and releasing their bigger games (i.e. Zelda) on better hardware.
The Switch is fantastic for what it is. Sure, it's anemic and old, but it's a creative design that more or less created a whole product category and allows for very creative gameplay.
They did push their luck a bit with BOTW and especially TOTK, regarding performance, sure. But most of the time, you really don't need incredible processing power to play a Nintendo game. They're overdue for a Switch 2 (I suspect they planned to release that much earlier but a combination of the pandemic and higher sustained sales than anticipated changed their plans), but I really don't think most of their consoles can be considered mistakes.
IMO Nintendo brings something different and it's very much okay that it exists.
What I'm actually doubtful about is Xbox and Sony. Those are just PC-controller combos, made cheap through standardisation, high volumes and loss-leader tactics, essentially. Microsoft and, to a lesser but similar degree, Sony, are the ones I'm not convinced provide the world with much value by making consoles.
The Switch is fantastic for what it is. Sure, it's anemic and old, but it's a creative design that more or less created a whole product category and allows for very creative gameplay.
This is actually their design philosophy: "Lateral thinking with withered technology," or, "what can we do with old technology we're really familiar with?" Nintendo was much slower to market with their 16 bit console than Sega, but they took their time to understand the new tech, and developed the first handheld cartridge console with 8 bit technology at the same time. Sega tried to emulate its success with a color handheld system, but it was large, had poor battery life, and didn't sell very well. Instead of rushing to catch up with a color handheld, Nintendo released the Game Boy Pocket, which was very popular. and released an entirely superior product in the Game Boy Color a few years later.
This philosophy isn't always a benefit to them; they lost the Final Fantasy franchise because the cartridge system on the N64 wasn't powerful enough to run it. However, it's usually a boon; the switch has been incredibly successful despite its graphical inferiority, and despite being comically underpowered compared to its competitors, the Wii is the secon-best selling console of all time, behind only the PS2.
I feel like you get to have the odd "failed" console as long as the next one is a smash hit.
Sega had the Saturn and then the Dreamcast just before it was steamrollered by the PS2.
Nintendo had Gamecube not do so well, the Wii was a smash hit, the Wii U again did badly, then the Switch blew it all away again. They've found their niche. The Steamdeck is poking around in there, but I doubt it will get the traction Nintendo have.
MS are at their second duffer in a row, and frankly it looks like they'll drop out in the future to me. They're starting to be about games rather than hardware, even if it's just to try and push subscriptions. The great cloud migration never happened for them. I think they'll go pure publisher in future, even if they hold onto Game Pass.
Sony only really had a disappointment with the PS3. Every other generation has handily destroyed all competition. Even they're doing a lot of PC ports which is nice.
They killed yuzu and ryujinx well before Switch 2 launch out of fear of piracy. Even the current switch DRM is insane. I feel like they put their dev team into full security because the OS is still an empty shell glorified game launcher. The DS had more features than this.
Even the yuzu forks can't exist peacefully online, one them literally requires you to use Tor to access.
Nintendo is insane.
Last time I checked they had no plans for a Switch 2. The sales are still climbing
They plan to announce it before April and have already sent out dev kits:
https://www.polygon.com/nintendo/23899504/nintendo-switch-2-release-date-power-name-games
Copyrights should be max 5 years
I’d argue that having them be 30 or 40 years would even be fine. An author who starts in their 20’s should reasonably expect to keep profiting off of their early work until they retire in their 50’s or 60’s. But the current state of copyright is just asinine, because it is basically written by and for corporations.
They don't have to stop selling their work after the copyright expires, it's just they no longer own a legal monopoly on it after they've had time to get the first to market purchases. Publishers, streamers, etc all carry works in the public domain currently.