Powerpin — 2 years ago(September 19, 2023 10:07 AM)

This document comes from email exchanges between Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft's game division, and other executives. They also expressed interest in purchasing Valve. These emails come from 2020, but it's doubtful their desire to aquire both companies have changed since.
https://videogames.si.com/news/microsoft-nintendo-valve-plans
Spencer did provide some insight on how Microsoft was planning to force Nintendo into a merger: “The unfortunate (or fortunate for Nintendo) situation is that Nintendo is sitting on a big pile of cash, they have a BoD that until recently has not pushed for further increase in market growth or stock appreciation,” he reported to his colleagues Chris Capossela and Takeshi Numoto. “I say ‘until recently’ as our former MS BoD member ValueAct has been heavily acquiring shares of Nintendo (…) and I’ve kept in touch with Mason Morfit [ValueAct’s CEO, editor’s note] as he’s been acquiring. It’s likely he will be pushing for more Nintendo stock which could create opportunities for us.”
Spencer wrote that without “that catalyst I don’t see an angle to a near term mutually agreeable merger of Nintendo and MS and I don’t think a hostile action would be a good move so we are playing the long game.”
Spencer called Nintendo “THE prime asset for us in Gaming” and said that he had discussions with the Japanese company about tightening its cooperation with Microsoft and Xbox.
“At some point, getting Nintendo would be a career moment and I honestly believe a good move for both companies,” Spencer concluded. “It’s just taking a long time for Nintendo to see that their future exists off of their own hardware. A long time… :-)”
Full document here: