No Bandai Take-Over Yet News

Nintendo and Bandai today both issued separate public announcements to quell talk of a Nintendo takeover of Bandai.<br><br>The talk first started after it emerged that Nintendo had purchased 2.6% of Bandai’s public stock towards the end of September via an agreement with Mattel, however both companies were keen to reiterate that this was not a prelude to a takeover:<br><br>Bandai President Takeo Takasu told a news conference, "Nintendo's purchase was not on a premise of any merger or equity tie-up." <br>"We appreciate Nintendo taking our shares, which will help deepen our relationship as a business partner," he added.<br><br>However a Nintendo representative did claim that if additional shares were to become available then the Japanese game manufacturer would consider the offer.<br><br>The deal has been widely seen as a positive move for Nintendo; Bandai have a wide selection of popular character franchises in Japan that includes ‘Digimon’ and ‘Gundam’, both of which have enjoyed very successful video-game translations. It’s also claimed that Bandai could now take advantage of Nintendo’s worldwide distribution to leverage its properties to a greater extent in the West.<br><br>Video-game fans will remember that SEGA were on the brink of a planned merger with Bandai in 1997, however the deal was broken off at the last minute following a protest by Bandai’s middle managers amidst the official reason of ‘unresolved differences’.<br><br>We’ll have more on the situation soon.