The news that Nintendo of America is selling all but 10% of their majority ownership of the Seattle Mariners raised some eyebrows across the sporting world. With the team in first place, the timing of the announcement seemed a bit odd. On the gaming side of things, Nintendo also reported that their new NX gaming platform would skip E3 in June despite launching in March of 2017.
I think in many way the two could go hand in hand has Nintendo is now poised to see a very large infusion of cash when the sale is expected to be finalized in August of this year. Nintendo owned roughly 49% of the team that they purchased 24 years ago to keep iy in Seattle and as a thank you to the area for supporting the company. Baseball had issues at the time with foreign ownership and control so several minority owners comprised 51% so despite Nintendo being the majority owner and controlling interest. Valued at 1.4 billion dollars by Nintendo, tbey now stand to see 39% of that value cashed out. It is no secret that the Wii U has failed to capture the sales and support that Nintendo had envisioned and now have a very large cash infusion on the way that very well could help with the completion, marketing, and launch of the NX.
One would also expect Nintendo to invest in additional titles as despite being a successful company, recent years were not as lucrative as one they have become used to and the death of two key leaders of the company in recent years have marked a change of direction for the company. While this is just the first of many moves coming from Nintendo, it is nice to see the company positioning themselves for the future.
