Trip Hawkins Speaks

[Lord Nepenthean]

This is a kind of old article (two months) and very short, but it is worth reading.  An interesting proposition which I really really really hope doesn't happen.  I know Microsoft would buy Nintendo in a heartbeat if they had the chance, but I for one hope Nintendo doesn't sell their souls like that.

Trippin' on Nintendo
What nasty fate does EA and 3DO founder Trip Hawkins predict for Nintendo?
by Matt Casamassina

February 23, 2005 - In an interview with the site Xbox2 News, Electronic Arts and 3DO founder Trip Hawkins suggested that he believed Nintendo would not be a hardware player five years down the road. The outspoken executive even indicated what he thought might become of the Big N.

Asked what he thought about Nintendo's future, Hawkins replied: "My magic eight ball says they will be acquired by Microsoft within five years."

Nintendo itself has repeatedly dismissed old rumors that it was thinking about becoming a software-only company, or that it might team up with another publisher to make hardware and games.

Last August, Microsoft head Bill Gates told German financial magazine WirtschaftsWoche that he would pick up the phone if Nintendo's former president Hiroshi Yamauchi called. However, days later Nintendo issued an official response, which read: "Nintendo is not for sale and there is no such talk at all."

http://cube.ign.com/artic...0/590427p1.html?fromint=1

[Arrrhalomynn]

If Trip Hawkins could actually look in the future 3DO would still exist today.

[Izret101]

That is a stupid statement Arrr.
Look were EA is.

Anyways if those rumors were true at all do you think Nintendo would allow people to know.
Stock would plummet among other serious buisness problems.

[Arrrhalomynn]

Yeah, look where EA is after Trip left the company ages ago.

Isn't Nintendo a privately held company? So no stock?

[CatchFiveBats]

I sincerely hope that this never happens...

[Tynstar]

Yeah, look where EA is after Trip left the company ages ago.

Dammit Arr i agree with you again!!

Due to the fact that Microsoft has so much money there has been rumors that thy where going to buy all the big game makers at one point or another.

If it happens oh well. I agree with the opinion that teh Big N will be out of the home console biz with in 5-6 years.

[den68]

If Trip Hawkins could actually look in the future 3DO would still exist today.

If Trip Hawkins could actually look in the future 3DO would have never existed.

he's not exactly going out on a limb saying Microsoft could could acquire Nintendo. who couldn't Microsoft acquire?

[sharp]

That does make me remeber the slogan of 3DO. Don't play a Dodo, Play 3DO.

And the dodo's currently are not Nintendo, but 3DO, Atari and SNK (and many more you can count Sega s they don't make consumer hardware anymore).

[spacewar]

Yeah, look where EA is after Trip left the company ages ago.

True, but Trip Hawkins is the only one who made millions of a failed system. He sold the 3DO technology and got rich of a failure, meaning that he isn't the worst businessman with bad instincts for what goes and what doesn't.

As for Nintendo and Microsoft: that's all in the stars. It all depends how well Nintendo survives in the next gen of consoles.