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I've been thinking of something lately. Something considered blasphemous my gamers in the 90s and possibly early 00s. I think Sega and Nintendo should partner up and be exclusive to each other. Whether it's called Nintendo Sega or whatever isn't important; likely the names would stay the same as they are now. But I really think each of the two companies would make a lot of sense being together and being official partners. That means you likely wouldn't see any major Sega games outside of a Nintendo console, so that can be a bit of a bust to this idea overall, but I have 3 reasons I think they already match up pretty well, which leads to my thoughts that they belong together. Let's start on those.
1. Sega themes on the 3DS. There are some awesome themes on the 3DS that Sega has released in the last few months, all of which (sound wise) were created with actual consoles booting up and making the sounds you hear in the theme. So if you have the Genesis theme installed and hear the SEGA yell as you start a game that's not just an emulated sound, it's a real sound from a real console that Sega used for that particular theme. I don't see much of this type of thing on any of the other consoles; it seems to be exclusive with Nintendo. This alone wouldn't mean a partnership between Sega and Nintendo is a great idea but the fact that the themes are how they are sound wise and are really only found with Nintendo goes to show Sega doesn't mind showing favoritism in at least small ways. They'd have to show a lot of favoritism in a partnership so this would be a start.
2. The Sonic blue Wii console. A few years back Nintendo released a console based on one of the Mario and Sonic Olympic games games and the console was Sonic blue, as a nod to the character and parent company Sega. There was an official edition of a Nintendo console that was all about homage to Sega! Let that soak in for a minute. When you add a company that creates unique and cool themes for one company, and the other had a console released that was all in the colors of the other guys, I'm sure you can start to see why I'd really favor a Nintendo and Sega merger. Themes, consoles, amiibo toys, tons of things point to this being a really good idea in the long haul, no matter how unlikely it may be. But this isn't all!
3. There are exclusive games on Nintendo hardware only. The Olympic games games I mentioned earlier would be some of these. The only place on earth where you see Sonic and Mario starring in a game together is found on the Wii, DS, 3DS, and Wii U. All Nintendo consoles. Those games aren't the biggest and best of the gaming world but it's still a strong example of the exclusivity that Nintendo and Sega has on this property. How about Sonic Lost World and the Sonic Boom games, which too are exclusive to the Nintendo brand? The more of this that exists the more that it shows that Nintendo and Sega already have a good deal of loyalty across their games and consoles. There are even Arcade games that Sega has created based on the Olympics games and so that goes to show even more depth that Sega and Nintendo have!
Is it likely that these two giants will ever merge and become one major company? No, not likely, but it's something that's not all that hard to imagine thanks to the themes, console, and game exclusivity that we see today. I think Sonic would really thrive with Nintendo and I think it would be great to see the two companies combine forces completely and totally. But time will tell on that one!
About The Author
Daniel Curtis has been an avid video game player for 21 years, since he was 5 years old. He runs a popular blog dedicated to gaming at
GamerZoneBlog.com.
The first being that Nintendo's current situation in the gaming industry is something a publisher like Sega can't want to tie it's future with. If they were going to do that Sony would, I think, clearly be the best choice from Sega's perspective.
The second is "the old grudge". Back in the NES and SNES days Nintendo price gouged third parties to extreme degrees. This is one of the reasons why the SEGA consoles became a thing. The enmity has faded a bit, I'm sure, but it's not gone. Business people never forget when someone screws them on a deal.
Maybe Nintendo would be more interested in acquiring SEGA gaming IP over a merger. SEGA makes most of its profit today from Pachislot and Pachinko instead of its gaming franchises, which may be of less interest to Nintendo. The more IP you have the better, and cultural similarities help mergers. Perhaps Xbox should buy Bethesda for example since they are US based and Bethesda controls various must own franchises.
Some gamers definitely get pissed off when acquisitions lead to more console exclusives but it makes sense for the hardware manufacturer which pretty much forces you to buy their console. I have a couple of friends that wont consider PlayStation because they love Halo. I agree that old feuds are no longer an issue. SEGA today works more closely with Nintendo than anyone else. A shared culture trumps their previous competition.
Maybe gamers that had to chose between Nintendo and SEGA have nostalgia over "Nintendo'nt" wont see it this way, but the companies are past that old SNES vs. Genesis feud. Anyway, what killed SEGA hardware was not Nintendo but bad SEGA decisions with constantly creating and dumping hardware. Had SEGA-Japan and SEGA-America developed a joint plan, the whole 32x/SEGA CD/Saturn disaster could have been averted.
PS forever! Final Fantasy forever! :) ( bought an xbox 360 for the multimedia function some 5 years ago, streaming movie, netflix etc.).
This could be good for Nintendo right now, but also for Sega and some of their IPs, so everyone wins.They could both profit from having exclusive games on Nintendo consoles. And like with Bayonetta 2, we saw that Nintendo was interested in picking up the project, after Sega had dropped it, so clearly Nintendo is interested in some of Sega's franchises.
sega is now a software only company , but i do like this idea