Microsoft’s buy-out of developers, from Ninja Theory, Obsidian, Bethesda, and more in the last few years is still fresh in our mind. But did you know that at one point in history, Microsoft actually tried to acquire Nintendo? And failed miserably? At least according to Bloomberg’s latest report on the original Xbox launch. Back in 2000, the company was trying to acquire major game developers and publishers to instantly strengthen its foothold in the new industry. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go well for the Windows giant.
According to the report, former Xbox head of business development Bob McBreen said the very first company they reached out to buy was EA but they quickly said, “No, thanks.” EA’s then-CEO Larry Probst was afraid that Microsoft “would abandon the gaming market and pretend like it never happened” in case the Xbox failed. And when it comes to their second choice, a Nintendo acquisition, Kevin Bachus, third-party relation at the time, said that they were basically being laughed at for a whole hour.
McBreen added that his team was also trying to acquire Nintendo’s first-party titles on their new console. The pitch? Well, Nintendo’s hardware “stunk” compared to Sony’s, and Xbox will be much better. As you can guess, the attempt failed flat on its face.
Later they tried approaching Square (before the merger and becoming Square Enix) and the now-defunct Midway Games, maker of Mortal Kombat. However, Square deemed Microsoft’s offer was “too low” while Midway won’t give them “a lot of value” after trimming the fat out of the company.
“We were talking to Midway about acquiring them. They were very serious about wanting to be acquired, but we couldn’t figure out how to make it work because we’d mmediately get them out of the PlayStation business, and we didn’t need their sales and marketing group, and so that left us with not a lot of value.”
After a heated internal meeting called ‘Valentine’s Day Massacre’ (The Xbox 360 Uncloaked book by Dean Takahashi went into this a bit as well if you want more details), the Xbox team finally had their break when Bungie, the maker of the widely popular Halo series, was open to a deal since it was in financial difficulties. As we all know, it ends up as a massive hit and practically carried the Xbox name to this day.
Although at the time of the buy-out other parties were not convinced, including Midway CEO Neil Nicastro who sent a voicemail saying that they were “the dumbest people in the industry” or even Microsoft Japan who was convinced that “as an immutable law of physics, first-person games don’t do well on console.”
Aside from acquisition attempts, Microsoft also approached other developers for exclusives. Which went much more swimmingly. Todd Howard of Bethesda was convinced once he and his team saw the full specification of the console. He claimed that the hard drive and memory “was a major step up from the PS2”, leading to the console release of Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Tomonobu Itagaki creator of the Ninja Gaiden series decided to support the Xbox as well after discussing the technical specifications with the legendary Seamus Blackley, the project’s technology officer. Meanwhile, other Xbox team’s meetings with third-parties had hysterical moments, recalled first Xbox head Rick Thompson.
