Kevin Bachus, then a top executive at Microsoft, tells us in an interview with Bloomberg.
“Steve Ballmer (CEO in 2000) wanted us to meet with Nintendo to see if they would consider an acquisition,” Bachus said in the conversation. “They laughed at it. Imagine someone just sat there laughing at you for an hour. That’s pretty much how it went.”
Microsoft’s wish to take over Nintendo had been known for some time: in 2002 media already wrote about the wishes of the tech giant. However, details about the talks had not been shared to date.
EA en Square Enix
Nintendo wasn’t the only game company in Microsoft’s sights: EA, Square Enix and Mortal Kombat creator Midway were also featured. EA already thanked for the offer in advance, while Square Enix found the amount offered too low. At Midway, the takeover fell to unnamed details.
With those acquisitions, Microsoft hoped to give its then first game console more power. With the Xbox, the company wanted to compete with the PlayStation 2, as Sony claimed it was “the future of computers.”
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