Nintendo President, Shuntaro Furukawa, has said that any future acquisitions by the company will only be made with technological advancement in mind. He clarified Nintendo’s plans for potential future acquisitions during a press conference held after the company’s financial result publication.
It seems that acquisitions will be made only for the purpose of technological innovation which the company could apply to its offerings. “We need to secure cash reserves to ensure financial stability, but if we need to respond to rapidly advancing technological innovation, we may acquire companies that possess the technology,” said Furukawa to Nikkei (via VGC).
Unlike some major conglomerates, Nintendo is very selective when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. It’s acquisition of Luigi’s Mansion developer, Next Level Games, was it’s first in over a decade. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Next Level Games has exclusively developed several Nintendo franchises over the past decade, including Mario Strikers Charged, Punch Out!!, and Metroid Prime: Federation Force.
In a statement released at the time, Nintendo said, “Completion of the acquisition will serve to secure the availability of NLG development resources for Nintendo, including development expertise, as well as facilitate an anticipated improvement in development speed and quality by enabling closer communication and exchange of staff with the Nintendo development team.”
“This is a partner that we have been working with for many years to develop various software, and we decided that we could improve the quality and speed of development by making it a subsidiary and working together,” said Furukawa to Nikkei. “We are not just blindly acquiring companies because we want development resources. We don’t think that simply expanding the scale of our business will really improve the value of the entertainment that Nintendo provides.”
Another major update from this press conference was that Furukawa admitted that Nintendo is unable to meet desired manufacturing levels due to the global semiconductor shortage. “Due to the global shortage of semiconductor materials, we are not able to produce all the products we want to,” he said. “We are doing everything we can, but there is an increasing sense of uncertainty about production plans.