Few business turns have turned out to be as prolific and key as that carried out by Microsoft with the creation of Xbox. In a story started as the weirdo in class, the branch sponsored by Bill Gates has become one of the most important in Redmond thanks to services such as Xbox Game Pass.
Since Bloom berg
Among the many conversations and ideas that stand out, the most surprising is the one that Kevin Bachus – director of business relations – recounts when explaining how they approached Nintendo and other companies to try to buy them.
In SHE, who at the time were a mainstay of the market that had practically put the last nail in the coffin of the Sega Dreamcast, they just gave them a resounding “noThe Japanese, on the other hand, took it differently:
“Steve (Ballmer) had us have a meeting with Nintendo to see if they would be willing to be acquired. They broke their asses. Imagine an hour where someone basically laughs at you. That’s how the meeting went.”
What remains for Bachus to comment and does point out Bob McBreen, head of business development, is that perhaps the way he approached the conversation was not the best for the pride of Nintendo.
“Nintendo was actually at our offices in January 2000 to discuss the details of a possible collaboration where we gave them the technical details of Xbox.
The talk revolved around that their hardware sucked, and it did if you compared it to the Sony PlayStation, so the idea was: “look, you guys are much better at the part of games like Mario and all that stuff. Why don’t you let us take care of the hardware? But it didn’t work. “
The deal didn’t work out with other companies like Square or Midway either, but they finally found the content they needed for their machine from the hand of a Bungie that he was going through certain financial problems. From that beautiful chance was born Halo and the rest is the story that you all already know.