It's one of the best gaming companies in the world, but could Nintendo one day be among the best entertainment companies, in the same vein as Disney? This is the hope of one of its new investors, according to a Reuters report. Investment company ValueAct Capital Partners now owns a 2% stake in Nintendo, valued at €1.100 billion, after acquiring an additional 2.6 million shares in the company. ValueAct is what is called an "activist investor": instead of seeking a seat on Nintendo's board of directors, it seeks to indirectly influence the company's management to improve its partners' return on investment. Its objective? To push Nintendo to go beyond its zone of safe video game consoles like Nintendo Switch.
Face the titans
While Nintendo's competition is now seen primarily as Sony's PlayStation division and Microsoft's Xbox, ValueAct is said to have diversified Nintendo into "one of the largest digital media services in the world, in a category with Netflix." , Disney+, Tencent Interactive Entertainment, and Apple Music." ValueAct has had several meetings with Nintendo management, and Nintendo confirms that a dialogue has been "engaged" with ValueAct, an unusual step, but certainly not always in practice between an investor and a company. With such a sizeable turnout, it's to be expected. Nintendo recently looked to extend its offering beyond games and its merchandise licensing issue. In addition to a partnership that sees LEGO create Mario-themed kits, Nintendo is developing a Super Mario movie with the team behind the Minions franchise and opening a theme park area at Universal Studios. You can check out the trailer for Super Nintendo World below: It's a change in direction that the late, great Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, had anticipated. In 2014, he said, "A lot of people around the world think that Nintendo is just a company that makes video games, and I think more and more of our employees are starting to think that way." "Some development workers find themselves in positions where they only think about making the game in front of them more fun, so I don't think it can be helped if other people outside of our company see us the same way." if we don't change the fact that we're focusing on video games, I felt the need to take this opportunity to declare that Nintendo is a company that can do whatever it wants.” Now it seems that Nintendo has investors who share Iwata's vision.