The era of the Xbox Switch was never meant to be, as some of the people behind the creation of the Xbox brand revealed that Microsoft tried to buy Nintendo twenty years ago, but they were laughed out of the building. The console war has consisted of three conflicting sides for twenty years now, with Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony battling it out at the marketplace.
Microsoft was a late-comer to the console war, with the original Xbox launching in 2001. The Xbox brand is still going strong, with the Xbox Series X/S marking Microsoft's best-everconsole launch. The Xbox brand has its own line of exclusive titles, but Microsoft has been acquiring studios in an effort to put more franchises under their banner. One of the biggest news stories of 2020 was Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax Media, which will put franchises like DOOM, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls series under its control.
The ZeniMax deal will cost Microsoft $7.5 billion, but that could be chump change compared to what it was willing to spend twenty years ago. Bloomberg has interviewed several of the people behind the creation and launch of the original Xbox to mark the 20th anniversary of the system. Former head of business development Bob McBreen and former director of third-party relations Kevin Bachus discussed Microsoft's attempts to acquire studios for the Xbox brand. After being turned down by EA, they visited Nintendo and inquired about an acquisition. The meeting, as quoted below, didn't go as planned:
"Kevin Bachus: Steve made us go meet with Nintendo to see if they would consider being acquired. They just laughed their asses off. Like, imagine an hour of somebody just laughing at you. That was kind of how that meeting went."
"Bob Mcbreen: We actually had Nintendo in our building in January 2000 to work through the details of a joint venture where we gave them all the technical specs of the Xbox. The pitch was their hardware stunk, and compared to Sony PlayStation, it did. So the idea was, 'Listen, you’re much better at the game portions of it with Mario and all that stuff. Why don’t you let us take care of the hardware?' But it didn’t work out."
McBreen also revealed that Microsoft looked into acquired Square Enix, but they were unable to come to terms on a price. Square Enix is pals with the Xbox brand now, but we might have lived in a world where Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts were Xbox exclusives. Bachus also said that Microsoft looked into acquiring Midway, but that deal also fell through.
The chances of Microsoft acquiring Nintendo were non-existent, even during the GameCube era. This was an especially smart move on Nintendo's part, considering it was about to enter the DS/Wii era, which is still the most profitable era in the company's history. Nintendo Switch sales are currently through the roof, and the console doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon. It does make us wonder what the world would have looked like if the deal had gone through. The Xbox Switch vs. the PS5 would make for a very interesting console war indeed.
Source: Bloomberg