What If Nintendo Jumped To Apple?

MG Siegler:

…the software sales would be beyond massive. How many copies of Mario and Zelda would Nintendo sell on the iPhone? What about the iPad? What about Apple TV?

Nintendo is in the unique position where they could certainly have leverage to strike a special deal with Apple here. The end result could be game-changing.

I actually think Apple would be better off buying Nintendo. Unlike every other company Apple has been rumored to be buying, Nintendo actually has software, resources and IP that Apple could use effectively. Apple makes a lot of software for its own devices, including iPhone games, but having Mario and Pokemon¹ and Zelda would be on another level of popularity and addictiveness altogether. Nintendo’s software team should be a very welcome addition to Apple’s development team.

Of course, the hardware team would unceremoniously get the boot.

Though Steve Jobs might be averse to gaming, he’s certainly not averse to family friendly entertainment - he’s intimately involved with Pixar and Disney, after all. Nintendo is the closest thing you can get to a video gaming Disney, and I think if Apple were to take gaming seriously Nintendo should be the first thing they should look at.

You can also bet that iPod Touch sales would go through the roof if it became the spiritual successor to the Game Boy & DS. Millions more Christmas stockings would be stuffed with iPods if they could come loaded with Mario Kart or Pokemon [insert random color or gem here].

This is not to say they wouldn’t negotiate a deal with them instead - it’s certainly a possibility - but an outright purchase seems like something Apple would do, given the potential revenue it could bring the company and the level of integration and feedback their developers would have with Apple’s engineers. That said, Nintendo might be less willing to go on board with that plan.