Among those who launched into a possible acquisition early on was apparently Mario’s maker Nintendo, an idea that, according to a recent Bloomberg oral history, received a hearty laugh from the Japanese company.
Kevin Bachus, then Xbox’s director of third-party relations, says the team reached out to Nintendo (after getting a “no thanks” from EA) for takeover talks at the behest of then CEO Steve Ballmer, but the argument didn’t go well.
“They just laughed out loud,” recalls Bachus. “Like, imagine a time when someone laughs at you. That’s how that meeting was.”
The idea, continues then-head of business development Bob McBreen, was for Nintendo to be outgunned in the Japanese console market and would perform better as part of the console lineup of Microsoft.
“In fact, we had Nintendo in our building in January 2000 to work out the details of a joint venture where we gave them all the technical specifications for the Xbox, “says McBreen.
“The tone was his hardware sucked, and compared to Sony’s PlayStation, it was. So the idea was, ‘Listen, you’re so much better at the Mario parts of the game and all that. Why don’t you just leave us? take care of the hardware? But it didn’t work. “
Square (now Square Enix) and Midway Games were also on Microsoft’s shopping list, but while those discussions were apparently better than conversations with Nintendo, neither of them worked out in the end.
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