Back when Microsoft started entering the console race they asked to be partners with Nintendo and Sony, sadly they both turned Microsoft down. Fries said in an interview with IGN: Following Nintendo's rejection, Fries said Bill Gates, who was Microsoft's CEO at the time, approached Sony to discuss a similar deal as well. Source
I don't know if I would say sadly. I would have liked to have seen that world though, maybe it would have ended consoles as distinct concepts sooner and we could all be enjoying DVD player style stuff instead.
Of course they turned them down. In fact, I bet every one of you would have done the same in their situation. Now before any of you are going to say "no I wouldn't", you should take some historical context (which unfortunately is missing for the article, which is...stupid). The first xbox released in 2001, which means these talks happened in '99 or 2000 or so. What was microsoft known for at that time? Windows millennium. Yes...windows millennium. An let me tell you: I f**king dare each and every one of you to install that OS on your system, attempt to play some games on them (yes: ATTEMPT), and then say with a straight face that those was THE company to partner up on in a market they barely had any knowledge about whatsoever*! *yes, they've made some PC games like age of empires, and directx's capabilities were obviously a trump, but their main asset was a business software company back then. It would've been almost just as weird for sony or nintendo to partner with cisco or oracle on a game console
Flight Simulator, Age of Empires, MechWarrior, Close Combat, the SideWinder series of gaming peripherals, and DirectX.
Sometimes I hate IGN. The information provided is incomplete. When Seamus and Kevin were designing the then called direct X box, before showing it to the higher ups (their bosses at the time) at Microsoft, they talked with Nintendo and Sony both companies together and independently. They wanted to see if they would be interested in launching it as a second_tier/co system to the ones they already had. They said no, believing the higher ups at microsoft would never let the company join the console race. Later once The two got the go ahead for the xbox, microsoft's higher ups then went to talk with Sony and Microsoft per the article. I know there is a little more to it then that, but that's the basic short version of what happened. Look for the g4 tv video's if you want a more descriptive information.
Imagine if this happened and the SNES Disk Drive partnership with Sony never fell apart, we'd have the Nintendo Playstation 360 Which in all honesty sounds terrible
In an alternate reality where stuff made sense, Microsoft would have continued and expanded it's line of Zune products, adding Xbox integration for gaming on the go, with 360-esque graphics and faithful 360 ports. Damn, what a wasted opportunity to make money.
Microsoft are the kings of pissing away money on dumb products, and stop supporting actually good products. It's like they get off on it or something. S P H E R I C A L P H E R I C A L
smart choice nintendo made! imagine it m$ would have turned mario into a shooter and we'd have games like mario wars the legend of fable forza kart there would have been nothing worse! all of Nintendo's franchises would have DIED!
Imagine the hardware and network integration from Microsoft combined with Nintendo's Vast library of software. They would be unstoppable, not even Sony could compete with that.
still would have failed and it was nintendo that would have been in charge of the hardware not M$ so you would have been playing halo and forza on gamecube and wii
