Imagine if Nintendo buys Capcom

Actually, imagine if Nintendo bought Capcom, kept the Megaman franchise and threw the rest to the wolves

Would be a good day

I actually wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo did buy Capcom, or at least controlling interest in the company. The two seem to be on much more amicable terms these days.  That said, if you thought the Bayonetta 2 exclusivity backlash from some corners of the internet was bad, imagine what it would be if Street Fighter; Devil May Cry; and Mega Man all suddenly became Nintendo exclusive. The internet would shut down.

Monster Hunter and Resident Evil.

It would be worth it.

This changes nothing in the short term, as the shareholders will want a better deal in takeover defense and will probably get it.

You'll see a pay-to-win cellphone "game" maker buy Capcom in 5-7 years. That's it.

DING DING!


The most lucrative (for shareholders) takeover defense allows them to buy stock at massively under-value in the event of an attempted takeover. This makes it much more difficult to reach the dreaded 50%+1 and the shareholders get a ton of cheap stock. Expect new defense mechanism to look an awful lot like that.

Too bad.  Nintendo and Capcom would be a perfect couple.


Several amazing classics could come back to Nintendo.


Sigh...it will never, ever happen.

FTFY

Why throw any of those IPs to the wolves? Nintendo could make good use of them. Also, I think the saltiness of Xbox owners getting an exclusive Dead Rising then never getting the series again would be entertaining. So, so many tears.

Anything to build up Nintendo's war chest of games.  But I would wonder how many people would jump ship in an acquisition.  Some of those franchises may have to go or end up unused.

I'm taking off work for a week if Nintendo bought Capcom. Would be the most legendary day the internet gaming world had ever seen. The golden tears of pain and loss would be epic defined!

Now EA will buy them, dismantle them, keep the franchises they want, and discard the rest.
None of them will ever touch a Nintendo home console again.

I really hope that doesn't happen.... it would be so great if Nintendo could sneak in with a majority buy in overnite trading before the board had a chance to react.

I guess I don't understand why everyone just assumes that Nintendo won't buy 51% of Capcom. It's my understanding that they have stacks of cash and Nintendo believes that if they have more great exclusive Wii U games more people will buy Wii U, plus then you could get 1 or 2 more 3DS games a year too.
We'd know for certain Monster Hunter would be Nintendo exclusive from here on out.
I don't know how much it would cost, but it seems to me that there would be a lot of upside and it would be worth spending a decent amount of money. Especially where they don't have to buy the entire company just 51%.

If Nintendo owned 51% of Capcom, it wouldn't just be MH that was exclusive, it would be everything Capcom makes, as Nintendo would now have controlling interest in the company.

There are a few things Capcom makes that would be better not keeping exclusive but be darned the Nintendo Version be the best.

That's right. Like I said lots of upside. Every Capcom game would either be Wii U or 3DS!

I'm lost, name 1 game that has 1 good reason to not be nintendo exclusive

What if Microsoft or say Gung-ho decide to buy instead. I know we all like Nintendo but they don't have the biggest pockets in the industry and could be outbid.

MS has been rumored to cut gaming spending and looking to offload the Xbox division since it has yet to make an actual profit since it's inception around a decade ago. But yes, technically, they could afford it. Not sure how good Capcom would be at Super Street Fighter Kinect and other such forced Kinect games, like the last big dev they purchased.

and I have no idea who Gung-ho is, but if anyone was to buy Capcom, none of them would be as exciting as Nintendo, considering that Nintendo has been missing a large selection of their games for quite some time now, and the fact that the internet would literally implode on itself.

What beef do you have with Capcom's other IP?  If Nintendo did this I would rightfully shit on them for throwing away tons of valuable IP.  This would be a horrible day.

I figure if Nintendo bought Capcom they would turn them into Nintendo and Capcom's identity would be lost but I think that's how it is for any merger or takeover.  Sega ain't Sega anymore for example.  It's just a name.  Nintendo would treat Capcom's IP better than others but I figure it would all start to feel like Nintendo games instead of Capcom games.  But if Capcom ever got taken over, I would trust Nintendo a loe more than anyone else.  The suggestion that some crappy cellphone dev would buy them is so likely it's depressing.

Nintendo would benefit from grabbing Capcom though since they're understaffed for supporting an HD console and a handheld.  Not only would Nintendo get a lot of new IP but they would also get a lot of new dev teams so their output of Wii U and 3DS titles would increase significantly.  Capcom also makes good games that are of a different style than Nintendo's so it would provide diversity to the lineup.  This all assumes Nintendo let's Capcom's teams make Capcom games and doesn't just assign them to make Mario spinoffs.  But what value is in that?  If Nintendo was to buy Capcom you would assume they would want Mega Man, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, etc.  You don't get that if you just assign the team to Nintendo stuff.

Though a cheaper approach would be to grab staff that left major third parties recently.  Keiji Inafune and Koji Igarashi left Capcom and Konami.  Nintendo could grab them and let them do their thing.  Though I figure if Nintendo wanted to do that they already would have or they would be too controlling and those guys wouldn't want to work for another bossy conservative Japanese videogame company.

I'm in the boat that thinks this would be a stellar move by Nintendo, much better than previous suggestions I've seen that they should pick up THQ, Atlas, or other ailing devs.

As for concerns that they would Nintendo-ize Capcom's output, I imagine that would only be for the best. Capcom has basically crapped out on all of their franchises except for Monster Hunter and Street Fighter. Nintendo might be able to make Monster Hunter have a wider appeal in the West, and I'm sure they'd leave Street Fighter the hell alone, that's a very specific thing with a dedicated userbase who would be forced to buy a Nintendo console to play. And it's not like Nintendo's going to take over development on Resident Evil or something, but they could well crack a whip to get it back into shape. Stuff like Bayonetta 2 and The Devil's Third seem like pretty clear evidence that Nintendo is happy to let other teams go as hard as they want.

I sincerely doubt Nintendo would actually do this, as it would be a Herculean managerial task to wrangle a bunch of new teams with different cultures, but given how important Monster Hunter is to the health of the 3DS in Japan, if someone else looked like they were going to swoop it, it could force Nintendo's hand.

I hope they buy it and Nintendoize them in 1 way-giving the teams the time to produce high quality games instead of rushing them and getting a decent to good game. Yes sometimes that means pushing it back and Nintendo has shown they'll push a game back it ensure its a quality release.

Nintendo as quality control, ensuring that the resulting games are good, would be awesome.  I don't really trust them (or really any company as big as them) to do just that.  There would be a fine balance between letting Capcom be Capcom while also ensuring they don't release junk.

Creative people really just need a filter that vetos when something is junk or, when a business is involved, uncommercial.  That's it.  No steering or mandating certain directions, just a check that says either "that's a shitty idea" or "that won't sell".  So instead of saying "you make this Mario spinoff game" they ask "what do you want to make?" and then go with the idea you think has a chance to make a profit and end up as a good game.

By all accounts, Nintendo hasn't interfered with Bayonetta 2. Also, given how childishly over-the-top Devil's Third looks, I kind of wish Nintendo would step in and tell Itagaki to cool his jets because the game is trying too hard. Nintendo has shown they can stand back and let creative types do their thing.

Or maybe something boring will happen... Like Nintendo buying enough of Capcom to ensure that no one else can own 51% of Capcom.

Buying companies isn't really Nintendo's style. Still, I'd think if they were to buy a percentage of a company, they would want something for that investment. Buying just enough of Capcom to prevent, say Sony or Microsoft from ever holding the majority doesn't really help Nintendo. Also, they would have to buy half to prevent another company from getting 51% ever. At that point, Nintendo should just buy 51% of Capcom and not have to worry about it again.

Didn't they buy 51% of Rare? That worked out really well.

If I remember correctly, Nintendo actually owned 49% of Rare, with the Stamper brothers retaining majority ownership of the company. I may be wrong on that, though.

Yeah, Nintendo owned 49%. I don't think Microsoft would have been interested if they couldn't have controlling interest in the company. Why buy such a large stake in a company that would only release exclusives on a competing platform? Nintendo also owned 49% of Retro, but no one knew or cared who Retro was. Nintendo paid Jeff Spangenberg a relative pittance to go away.

You're right about the 49%, but Microsoft bought 100% including the shares Nintendo owned. Nintendo had the rights to buy them first, but they were really expensive as Microsoft paid $375 million so Nintendo bought Retro instead for $1 million.

Isn't there a law in Japan that keeps foreign companies from owning or buying out local companies?

Actually they have. They told then to not tone it down on their behalf, and to remove that undershirt on the link costume because it would fit her style better. But you know Nintendo, meddlers gotta meddle ;)

Iwata did say that mergers and aquisitions could save Nintendo's financial situation. Nintendo would be a fool to pass on the opprotunity to purchase such a company with such powerful IPs. Nintendo's power base would increase in the gaming industry. Securing Monster Hunter alone would ensure their dominance in Japan, and all of the hardcore titles would help close Nintendo's gaming droughts. I say let it happen.

No I think resident evil has lost it's credibility so yeah, there's that...

At this point, I don't think you'll see Nintendo buy a major studio. They could have bought others like Sega or Atlus but they've passed on all opportunities. This Capcom news will be more of the same with wishful hoping and then the window will close and everyone will wonder will wish they had gone for it. Nintendo just wants small companies they can buy on the cheap and increase profitability that way.

The problem with buying a company like Capcom, is you buy the name and the IP, but you may not be able to retain the talent.

So Nintendo would rather court the talent, possibly with offers such as helping them fund their own studio w/ a development contract. But regardless, Capcom would be a good buy even if they lost a majority of the talent.
If they could hold onto the SF Team, the MH Team and re-organize a new Mega-man team, they are already winning. VC would get a HUGE boost and Smash Bros. now has room for a major expansion.

Forgot to mention, I feel like there's an opportunity here to gather the japanese game developer kingdoms to rally against Western dominance. Most of Nitnendo's outreach efforts of late seem like a step in this direction, though Square Enix is still giving the cold shoulder for the most part. Also, does Konami do much of anything internally at this point besides developing Metal Gear games?

I hate you. Also, the Link costume has only been shown in the first Bayonetta.

I would think CapCom would find some way to prevent a buyout. Just doesn't seem like a company that wants it to happen.

No more than Metroid has.  I'm sure the franchise could bounce back from RE6.  I don't expect it to entirely because Capcom, like pretty much every Japanese videogame company these days, is run by idiots.  But with a great comeback game and a good marketing campaign it probably stands a chance.

From what I've heard about Resident Evil 6, it's improved dramatically after all the patches they've done on the game since release.  I might get around to playing that game again this Halloween.

Nintendo VS Capcom Brawl!