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Phil Spencer Thinks Xbox Acquiring Nintendo Would Be A Good Move For Both Companies

Phil Spends-er wants to throw some of that acquisition cash Nintendo's way.

Avatar photoBy Kieron Verbrugge

Thanks to poorly-controlled court documents that literally anybody can download and access, a whole ton of documents that Microsoft wouldn’t have wanted out in public have leaked including new Xbox Series X and Series S console refreshes and a whole schedule of upcoming Bethesda releases.

The files were picked up by Resetera, where a link to the PDF uploaded by the US courts was found to have a ton of attached slides containing the unannounced information. It’s a genuine treasure trove of super-early information that we’re sure Microsoft didn’t want out there, but the proverbial cat has well and truly left the bag.

One interesting tidbit that’s been picked up from internal emails that were included in the documents shows genuine interest from Phil Spencer and other executives in seeking an acquisition of Nintendo, an idea that was floated among talks of doing the same for Warner Bros. Interactive (WB Games) and ZeniMax (ie, Bethesda, which obviously ended up happening):

Some of the key takeways in this discussion –which is from 2020, mind, so not representative of the position Microsoft are in now – are that Spencer believes (or at least believed at the time) that Nintendo would be better off not pursuing their own hardware releases, and that an acquisition by Xbox would be “a career moment” and a good move for both companies. The idea seemingly being that Nintendo would thrive on developing its catalogue of first-party software for the Xbox ecosystem and ditching the idea of dedicated Nintendo consoles.

“It’s just taking a long time for Nintendo to see that their future exists off of their own hardware. A long time…. :-)” says Spencer at the end of his email.

As our mates at Vooks have expressed, probably even longer than he thinks.