Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa discussed Nintendo’s plans for its $9.2 billion war chest, including what would make the company consider an acquisition, following the publication of the company’s quarterly earnings on Thursday. The earnings report revealed that Nintendo had sold more than 84 million Switch units and spent record amount on R&D.
“We need to secure cash reserves to ensure financial stability, but if we need to respond to rapidly advancing technological innovation, we may acquire companies that possess the technology,” he said, according to Nikkei and reported by VGChronicle.
Nintendo has talked about the importance of developing new technology in the past, especially when discussing their R&D budget. Given the massive success of the Switch, which is selling at a rate that outpaces both the PS4 and Wii, and nearly matching the DS, this makes a lot of sense. Nintendo has previously said it’s not interested in “blindly acquiring companies” and that buying another studio is something the company considers for quite while. That tracks, too. Nintendo acquired Luigi’s Mansion 3 developer Next Level games in February, but that was after working with the studio for on several games, including Mario Strikers Charged, Punch Out!! and Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Before that, Nintendo had not acquired another studio in more than a decade.