{"id":423566,"date":"2025-11-04T23:06:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T23:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vg247.com\/microsoft-nintendo-acquisition-letter-laughed-out-of-office"},"modified":"2025-11-04T23:06:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T23:06:40","slug":"microsoft-publishes-the-acquisition-letter-that-got-it-laughed-out-of-nintendos-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/microsoft-publishes-the-acquisition-letter-that-got-it-laughed-out-of-nintendos-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft publishes the acquisition letter that got it laughed out of Nintendo&#8217;s office"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/microsoft-publishes-the-acquisition-letter-that-got-it-laughed-out-of-nintendos-office.jpg\" \/> <\/p>\n<p>In an alternate timeline, all these things have happened. Becasue over 20 years ago, as Microsoft was getting ready to launch the original Xbox console, a couple of execs at the company were worried that there wouldn&#8217;t be enough games for the hardware at launch. The solution? Buy Nintendo!<\/p>\n<p>Nintendo, though, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vg247.com\/microsoft-tried-to-buy-nintendo-ea-others\">&ldquo;laughed their asses off&rdquo;<\/a> at the offer. Now &ndash; perhaps as the embarrassment fades some 20-plus years on &ndash; Microsoft has published a letter that was sent between the two companies at the time, giving us an insight into the thinking behind the deal.<\/p>\n<p>The letter has been shared as part of <a href=\"https:\/\/museum.xbox.com\/en\/content\/original-xbox-screen-5\">the new browser-based Xbox 20th anniversary interactive museum<\/a>, and though lots of the document is covered up (boo), there&#8217;s stil a lot to be learned from what&#8217;s visible.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vg247.com\/microsoft-nintendo-acquisition-letter-laughed-out-of-office\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vg247.com\/microsoft-nintendo-acquisition-letter-laughed-out-of-office\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an alternate timeline, all these things have happened. Becasue over 20 years ago, as Microsoft was getting ready to launch the original Xbox console, a couple of execs at the company were worried that there wouldn&#8217;t be enough games for the hardware at launch. The solution? Buy Nintendo! Nintendo, though, &ldquo;laughed their asses off&rdquo; at the offer. Now &ndash; perhaps as the embarrassment fades some 20-plus years on &ndash; Microsoft has published a letter that was sent between the two companies at the time, giving us an insight into the thinking behind the deal. The letter has been shared as part of the new browser-based Xbox 20th anniversary interactive museum, and though lots of the document is covered up (boo), there&#8217;s stil a lot&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerpt-more\"><a class=\"blog-excerpt button\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/microsoft-publishes-the-acquisition-letter-that-got-it-laughed-out-of-nintendos-office\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":423567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6034,134,13,99],"class_list":["post-423566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vg24-7","tag-industry-news","tag-microsoft","tag-nintendo","tag-xbox"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Microsoft publishes the acquisition letter that got it laughed out of Nintendo&#039;s office | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In an alternate timeline, all these things have happened. Becasue over 20 years ago, as Microsoft was getting ready to launch the original Xbox console, a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/microsoft-publishes-the-acquisition-letter-that-got-it-laughed-out-of-nintendos-office\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Microsoft publishes the acquisition letter that got it laughed out of Nintendo&#039;s office | Arcader News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In an alternate timeline, all these things have happened. 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