Yeah if they are ever going to make a huge investment getting full control of the Pokemon IP would be the most logical choice. I mean imagine how different their finances would have looked during the Wii U era if Nintendo got a larger slice of the profits from Pokemon Go for example.
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Nintendo acquires Shiver Entertainment from Embracer
- Thread starter BoktaiFan
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I like where your head is at. They could definitely morph into another big support studio as time goes on.
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I was under the impression the current GameFreak, Creatures Inc., Nintendo holding pattern of the Pokemon IP was intentional? We don't know the exact figures but Nintendo has a non-negligible stake in the other two companies as well as copyright of Pokemon names. Outright buying complete control of the Pokemon IP would make profits increase on paper, though I'm sure it'd be a logistical nightmare with how many moving pieces it takes to administer.
Why exactly would it be a logistical nightmare? The Pokémon Company would still do most of the Pokémon stuff with merch, anime and cards, Gamefreak and Creatures would still be developing the games. Why would any of that need to change?
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The only ownership stake we know about (and the details kinda slipped out) is Creatures, with a 10% stake.
It is “intentional” insomuch as Game Freak created Pokemon as an independent developer, Creatures stepped in to help finance the original when GF was struggling and took a producer credit/cut. Both of those developers being independent is because it’d cost Nintendo a LOT of money to buy them out, given the value they generate, which Nintendo would likely not have anticipated until well after the fact. They are able to keep them close because they hold shared copyrights/trademarks on Pokemon and, because that doesn’t cost them as much as a purchase, they are OK with that. Why spend money if you don’t have to?
Game Freak and Creatures, because they make the money they do, likely have current management that have no intention to sell, no matter how interwoven their fate is with Nintendo at present. But that won’t necessarily last forever. When Tajiri, Sugimori and Watanabe are ready to retire and sell Game Freak and Ishihara is ready to sell Creatures, Nintendo will have to shore up the cash to make it happen, and as I said, it will not be cheap, unless Pokemon as a franchise sees a massive collapse.
The same principle applies to HAL, IntSys and Camelot. Not spending the money to acquire has freed up cash for other things, but there will come a point where the money will be spent on these teams, likely with a similar trigger event.
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I found and ripped the vector logo from Embracer's .PDF annual report:
They finally updated their website (https://www.shiver.net/) compared to before (https://web.archive.org/web/20240526092109/https://www.shiver.net/).
They have not acknowledged that they are a Nintendo studio, but there is a change in wording.
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Mentions of PlayStation/Xbox and original IP have been removed.
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Since those are private entities, can Game Freak and Creatures legally sell themselves to Nintendo for cheap or even give it away? Not sure how private stakes works.
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Each individual private shareholder can sell their piece of the business for whatever price they believe it's worth, but these things are typically negotiated with all stakeholders at once, with a fair and opaque share price.
This is why we can have odd situations like NDcube where Nintendo only owns 99% because they have a single private stakeholder who's held out on selling their piece of the business.
When NDcube was being prepped to take in the Monegi/Hudson Soft diaspora due what was happening at Konami, Nintendo bought Dentsu's 18% share of NDcube (bringing Nintendo's stake to 96%), and they sold because Nintendo gave a price Dentsu was willing to take. That increased to 97% 5 years later and now sits at 99%. The working theory is that the remaining share owners that made up that 4% in 2010 either needed a quick cash infusion and took a late offer or they passed away and the shares were sold as part of estate settlement.
The new wording also drops the mention of being part of the Embracer Group. While that isn't being the same as being officially a Nintendo-owned subsidiary, there isn't any other reason why they would no longer mention Embracer.