At the risk of sounding like a broken cartridge, I think it’s time for Apple to seriously look at buying Nintendo.
Yes, I’ve been going on about this
for years. (
Many have.) And yes, major hurdles remain: namely that Nintendo remains a profitable company with seemingly little or no desire to sell. But come on, it’s starting to make too much sense.
But just as important here is something that was announced two weeks ago: Apple Arcade. While the
details were light — we don’t know the launch date beyond the fall, nor do we know the price Apple will charge — we do now know that it’s one of the key cogs in Apple’s move towards their services-oriented future.
Oh and by the way, Apple will be commissioning games to be a part of this bundle.
Which game developer would be the best in the world to work with in this regard? Well from a pure IP perspective, there are a few names that come to mind – Mario. Zelda. Donkey Kong. – all Linked together by a single company.
In the past, Apple has treated the gaming business quite casually, even though
it has seemingly been right there for the taking, given the popularity on iOS devices. But now they’re diving in. Again, Apple Arcade is interesting, but it could be a total
game changer if it featured Nintendo IP. Who doesn’t sign up for such a service?
Let’s say Apple charges $10/month for that service. If a million people sign up, that’s $120M a year for Apple. Apple would undoubtedly charge more with Nintendo IP. And more people would undoubtedly sign up with Nintendo IP. At $20/month, with 10 million people signed up, that’s $2.4 billion a year. Have I mentioned that there are 1.4 billion iOS devices out there?
You do the math.
I know, I know. It’s a crazy idea. Nintendo currently has
a market cap of about $40B. A deal would require a pretty healthy premium. Apple has $250B in cash. More importantly, they finally have the pressure to… think differently, and to do a crazy deal like this.
Game on?
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