Nintendo likely won’t be acquiring any major gaming companies

Microsoft and Sony will be fighting it out over the acquisition battles. Nintendo however will ignore all of the opposition and stick to publishing its first-party games.

Shuntaro Fuukawa, Nintendo president, told investors last November that Japan plans to invest around 100 billion Japanese yen in its developers. With Microsoft working to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion and Sony acquiring Bungie for $3.6 billion, Furukawa told investors in a Thursday presentation that Nintendo’s plans wouldn’t be changing, Bloomberg reported.

“Our brand was built upon products crafted with dedication by our employees, and having a large number of people who don’t possess Nintendo DNA in our group would not be a plus to the company,” said Furukawa.

However, the president also said that he isn’t entirely against acquisitions. Nintendo purchased Next Level Games (the studio that developed Next Level Games) last year. Luigi’s Mansion 3. The acquisition came only after the Vancouver-based studio had spent over a decade developing games for Nintendo.

Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based consultant, also told Bloomberg that he doesn’t see Nintendo jumping on the acquisition bandwagon. “I really have a hard time imagining which of the big ones they could even be interested in buying,” he said. “Nintendo will always stay Nintendo. The company has always relied on first-party games, and I don’t see any reason why they should change.”

While Nintendo’s philosophy could always change in the future, it’s probably safe to take “Nintendo buys Square Enix” off of your 2022 video game acquisition Bingo card.