In the last year of the 20th century, when the development project of the Xbox console defeated the WebTV team (which once produced TV set-top boxes) in the internal competition and persuaded Stephen Ballmer and Bill Gates to invest tens of billions of dollars in the home computer field, Microsoft faced an important choice: to use the development experience of PC games such as "Age of Empires", " Microsoft Flying Simulation " and "Crazy City Racing" to cultivate first-party studios from scratch, or to rely on the market value of more than 600 billion US dollars to launch "money capabilities" to acquire other game companies. Apparently, they chose the latter.
This is not the result of a slap in the mind. After all, in the computer software business, Microsoft once enjoyed a lot of dividends through acquisitions. For example, in 1981, I bought the copyright of the Seattle computer products company 86-DOS operating system for only $50,000, making it the popular MS-DOS. Later, a series of cooperation and copyright acquisitions for Sybase allowed Microsoft to enter the database market smoothly.
Even in the field of home computers, this tendency is revealed before the Xbox project has been finalized. They originally wanted to win the other party's company through cooperation with Sega's system customization, but some of Sega's senior executives strongly opposed it. In addition, Bill Gates wanted to fully compatible the Windows operating system with the new hardware, which was conducive to the porting of PC games, which ultimately made the imagined transaction shelved unlimitedly.
Microsoft once authorized Windows CE to Sega's Dreamcasttml2 using
So, in the acquisition of major game companies, former Microsoft executive Rick Thompson probably became the busiest and unlucky person. He booked two air tickets in his office in Redmond, Washington, at that time, one flew to Redwood City, , California, , and the other to Kyoto, Japan. One of the targets is EA, and the other is Nintendo recommended by Ballmer.
Nintendo's "Damn it"
At that time, EA had just given up its support for Sega Dreamcast host, which was an excellent real-life machine to enter. But when Thompson visited EA in an interest, John Riccitiello, the company's chief operating officer, did not give him a good look: "I have talked with people from Microsoft more than once, but I have never seen you... You guys don't even know how to host..."
Later when talking about this, Riccitiello admitted that he might have left an unfriendly impression. The reality is that the two sides held several consultations, but Microsoft did not provide information that would allow EA to make real decisions. Larry Probst, former CEO of EA, has also kept saying "Who will lose his job if he messes up."
Because once the Xbox project fails, it may be just a robe and a sleeve for Microsoft. They have huge computer software and hardware business support behind them, but for EAs without a platform, the risk is too great. They need to continue to sell their top-notch works to maintain their assets, and they do not want to become abandoned. To a large extent, this is also related to EA's past experience. As the primary partner in sponsoring 3DO hosts, the previous failure of 3DO has made them more cautious.
John Riscitiero is currently the CEO of Unity. In 2019, he was sued for suspected sexual harassment and illegal firing.
After being turned away from the first round, a colleague who worked at Sony during the release of PlayStation gave Xbox team members a proposal for negotiations - asking developers to talk about technology first, and then business matters.
However, according to the records of writer Rusel Demaria in books such as "Game of X v.1: Xbox" and "Game of X V.2: The Long Road to Xbox", Rick Thompson, a former Microsoft executive who was responsible for negotiating with Nintendo, was obviously too arrogant at that time.
"Because you know, typical Microsoft people, what they want to do is create the future, and I am like an anti-Christian person, and found Nintendo and said I would rather buy them... In my opinion, we should buy this company for $25 billion, rather than starting from scratch from the inside." Thompson also said, "So during my time in Kyoto, I went to Nintendo's office seven times and negotiated through my crappy American way, and I mentioned bluntly "want to buy you guys." ”
Di Maria interviewed many Xbox startup members in order to ensure a variety of angles. When she wrote "Game of X v.1: Xbox", she did not accept sponsorship from anyone.
Former Xbox third-party relationship director Kevin Bachus recalled that this action made Nintendo executives laugh: "They just laughed nonstop, just like, imagine someone laughed at you for an hour, and that meeting was like this. "
The well-known game blog Did You Know Gaming also expanded this interesting story. When Microsoft proposed the acquisition agreement in 1999, Nintendo's former president of the United States, Miya Arakawa (Yamauchi Hiroshi's son-in-law), initially thought it was a joke, but after Microsoft explained their intentions in detail, Lao Ren began to take the proposal seriously and launched a total of seven meetings.
To be fair, Nintendo is definitely not uninterested. At least in the early stage, some of their members worked with Microsoft engineers for two and a half days, and learned about Xbox All the technical details. Microsoft has put forward great conditions. Even after the acquisition is completed, they are still willing to provide a certain number of free games to the Nintendo platform every year.
In fact, according to former Xbox business development director Bob McBreen, Nintendo had visited Microsoft in January 2000. In an interview with Bloomberg, he said:
"We gave them all the technical specifications of Xbox. Their hosts give the impression that the hardware is terrible, and when you compare it to Sony's PlayStation, it does. So our idea is, "Look, you are obviously stronger in the game than in the hardware, such as Mario and other things, so why not let us be responsible for the hardware?""
The results of the meeting are said to be submitted to Hiroshi Yamauchi by fax, but he doesn't seem to like this idea, thinking that Microsoft lacks understanding of the game industry. On the other hand, it is also because GameCube is about to be released (September 2001), and there is little room for negotiation between the two sides. In Iwata Satoshi in 2002 Before taking over the president in 2008, Nintendo could be said to be a family business, and Hiroshi Yamauchi's attitude played a decisive role.
Microsoft's daily journey
On the parallel line of negotiations with Nintendo, former Microsoft CEO Ballmer was not idle either. He went to Tokyo in November 1999 and found another hot Japanese company at that time: Square in "Finish Fantasy ".
It is obvious that Microsoft also has Square The acquisition invitation was issued, and the negotiations between the two sides even entered the final stage, so that Ballmer held a celebration dinner with the executives the night before the signing.
The result was the next day, Hisashi Suzuki, who was then the vice president of Square, suddenly said: "Before signing, our bankers had something to say. "
Suzuki Suzuki believed that there were some errors in the company's valuation, and they deserved higher transaction value, and then doubled the price proposal and wanted to sell half of the company's shares for US$1.5 billion. In a hesitation, Ballmer still gave in.
Suzuki criticized the merger of Square and Enix in 2012 as a complete mistake
Although Microsoft's acquisition has been repeatedly frustrated in Japan, some of the game's production invitations have achieved results.For example, after discussing the technical specifications and release dates of the machine with Tecmo, Itagaki Aoshi agreed to bring "Dead or Live" and "Ninja Dragon Sword" to Xbox. He believes that Xbox is 4 to 6 times stronger than PS2, and his team needs such a platform to create the best action game in the world.
On the other hand, Rick Thompson also contacted a Konami executive. Things were very magical. Before going, all relatives and friends warned him that this man was a drunkard. The two sides chatted through the translator's message for the whole night, and in the end they actually drank a box of Asahi beer. He returned to the hotel at 4 a.m., but unexpectedly, at the meeting at 9 a.m., the executive held his hand and said directly, "Disclaimer, I'm joining."
Microsoft executive Rick Thompson
Of course, among the above-mentioned early acquisitions and cooperation for Xbox projects, Nintendo should still be the one that has the biggest impact on Microsoft. Not only is it because that hour of "sneering" is still fresh in memory, the two sides have also been in a disconnected relationship since then.
This is what Microsoft may think - since it can't buy Nintendo, then aim at their second-party studio.
In September 2002, they spent US$375 million to buy Rare, which has a 49% stake in Lao Ren. Although it cannot be said to be a "retaliatory acquisition", Rare's old employees complained about this transaction and felt helpless.
Martin Hollis, who joined Rare in 1993, said: "Microsoft and Rare's marriage was bad from the beginning. The groom is rich and the bride is beautiful, but they want to make different games, and they also want to make games in different ways."
Rare and Nintendo's relationship was very good at one time. Not only was it favored by Genyo Takeda, the director of the Nintendo comprehensive development headquarters, but Miyamoto Shigeru also gave them a potted plant that symbolizes friendly relations. In return, the studio produced the pioneering FPS game "007 Golden Eye", and eventually someone participated in the development of the GameCube console. Rare is also always able to create millions of blockbuster games with a small team of 10 individuals.
Rare Originally headquartered in Twycross, England, a small British village
It’s a pity that after entering the millennium, the cost of game production suddenly increased, but Nintendo did not provide more funds for Rare, so they were unable to find potential buyers. Later, Microsoft won the bid with Activision. Perhaps as Hollis said, Rare is more inclined to look to the East, with childlike vitality and fun, while Microsoft's games are American-centric, full of masculinity and androgens, and the direction of the studio's development has always been a problem. For many old employees, the working atmosphere becomes more dull and the pressure is much greater after having a new owner.
From today's results, although Rare's games such as " Sea of Thieves " and "Eternal Wilderness" are still full of creativity, they are no longer comparable to the Golden Age more than 20 years ago, and their reputation and business achievements have declined significantly. To generalize, if Nintendo had accepted Microsoft's $25 billion, it might not be a good thing for the blooming game industry.
"Eternal Wilderness" has not paid much attention, but it is a game I am looking forward to.
Interestingly, according to the book "Cases in Marketing Management", when Ballmer invited Peter Moore to take charge of the Xbox department in 2003, there seemed to be another discussion within Microsoft about acquiring Nintendo. But the company's top executives eventually thought Nintendo was too marginal to be a major player in the video game market, Moore recalled: "We were completely focused on Sony at the time, and Nintendo wasn't even in the discussion.”
For Moore, his main task at that time was to supervise the development and release of the next generation of console Xbox 360: "I'm tired of expensive advertising on consoles, and I'm going to do this in a different way. ”
And for Microsoft, a new era has also quietly arrived.
Reference:
Game of X
Nintendo GameCube Part 2
Who Killed Rare?
Xbox: The Oral History of an American Video Game Empire
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