News

Nintendo willing to utilise $9 billion war chest for acquisitions - when needed

Next Level Games purchase was first in a decade

Nintendo willing to utilise $9 billion war chest for acquisitions - when needed

Nintendo has confirmed that it would be open to making more acquisitions to keep up with "rapidly advancing technological innovation".

The comment was made by Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa (via VGC) during a press conference following its financial results for the full-year earnings; where the Japanese firm reported that Switch hardware sales have now reached 84.6 million total units.

In January, Nintendo announced that it would purchase Luigi's Mansion 3 developer Next Level Games - marking its first acquisition in over a decade.

Cash for growth

Now, the Nintendo president has further stated that it is willing to utilise its ¥1 trillion ($9.2 billion) in cash reserves to keep the games maker's financials secure.

"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," the full quote from Furukawa reads.

We previously wrote about why Next Level Games was an anomaly and why we shouldn't expect more Nintendo acquisitions anytime soon, but maybe this comment marks a change of attitude. 

More recently, Furukawa spoke about the possibility of further franchises outside of Mario receiving their own projects in the form of animation.


Tags:
Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.