Microsoft shows letter from the period around the failed Nintendo takeover

Microsoft has posted online part of a letter the company sent to Nintendo in 1999 about a proposed partnership. Microsoft tried to take over Nintendo before the release of its Xbox, but was laughed at by Nintendo.

The letter indicates that Microsoft tried to arrange a meeting with Horishi Yamauchi and Genyo Takeda, then respectively the CEO of Nintendo and the man responsible for the hardware of Nintendo consoles.

The letter was sent on October 20, 1999 by Rick Thompson, who was responsible for the Xbox project at the time. The addressee was Jacqualee Story, then the head of Nintendo of America. Although the text is not fully visible, it does appear that Microsoft had difficulty talking to Nintendo’s top executives and that they had objections to a partnership with Xbox.

“Dear Jacqualee, I appreciate you taking the time to arrange a meeting with Mr. Takeda and Mr. Yamauchi, to discuss a possible strategic partnership between Nintendo and Microsoft on future video game platforms. I understand Mr. Takeda’s concern about the possible partnership and will try to follow the guidelines he has requested [onleesbaar]’, the letter says.

Also visible are parts of the letter in which Microsoft talks about the development of its Xbox project and Dolphin. At the time, that was the code name of the Nintendo GameCube, which was to be released in 2001. Microsoft said it wants to help make it the ‘best console’. Finally, it can be seen that the Xbox CEO promises that the conversations will be confidential. Thompson says he looks forward to meeting Takeda and Yamachi to discuss his “exciting proposal” in more detail.

Microsoft has put an image of the letter in its virtual Xbox museum, in honor of the console’s 20th anniversary. It is the first time that Microsoft has released official documentation about the conversations with Nintendo from more than twenty years ago. It has been known for some time that Microsoft tried to enter into a joint venture and attempted to take over Nintendo.

At the beginning of this year, new information about this came out in an article by Bloomberg. In it, former Microsoft employees spoke freely about the takeover attempt. Former CEO Steve Ballmer also contributed to that article. Bob McBreen, Microsoft’s head of business development at the time, was commissioned by Ballmer to acquire publisher Electronic Arts. McBreen said EA thanked it and then focused on Nintendo.

Although it can be concluded from the letter that the rapprochement in 1999 was difficult, according to McBreen, Microsoft did have talks with Nintendo in January 2000 to work out details about a joint venture to be set up. Microsoft then gave all the technical details about the Xbox to Nintendo. The goal was to persuade Nintendo to collaborate by offering better hardware; Nintendo would be responsible for the games.

It is not known exactly how those talks went. It is clear that they have not had the desired result for Microsoft, because there has never been a collaboration with Nintendo. Microsoft then made an attempt to acquire Nintendo. About this, Kevin Bachus, Microsoft’s director of third-party relations at the time, said: “Steve Ballmer had us schedule a meeting with Nintendo to see if they would consider an acquisition. They laughed at us. Imagine if someone talked to you for an hour. laughing. That’s how that meeting went.”