Update: 8th October, 2024 – PIF decreases its stake.
The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) is mulling over increasing its stake in Nintendo and other gaming companies according to an interview between Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud and Kyodo News.
Speaking to Kyodo, Prince Faisal, vice chair of the PIF’s gaming divison, said that further investment is being considered, but that they are not in any rush and will make investments in a “friendly” way.
The PIF currently owns 8.58% of Nintendo shares, while having stakes in Nexon (10.53%), Koei Tecmo (8.99%), and Capcom (6.60%).
Driving the PIF’s investments is the desire to move away from oil, the nation’s primary resource and export, and into other, foreign markets.
Additionally, both Prince Faisal and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman- Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler- are said to be gamers, with the latter reportedly being a fan of Activision’s Call of Duty game series.
First SNK, and now Nintendo?
I wonder how Nintendo will put their Nippon foot down when it comes to Saudi’s inner politics/practices.
Nintendo needs to ick these losers to the curb. They want to take over the company.
My sentiments exactly. Nintendo needs to stay Japanese.
Little chance that this will happen, the Japanese government is very protectionist towards the country’s companies, in the worst case: Nintendo will merge with another Japanese company to protect itself as many other companies have done
Then, the Saudi government has no interest in taking control of it: they know nothing about video games…
Rather now and not too late, Nintendo needs to drop Switch 2 news or at least give us a date.
Capcom has really improved thanks to Saudi owning shares. If anything, this should make Nintendo better.
How does owning 5% in a Campcom improved Capcom? Educate me.
ok boomer
Capcom also went on a censorship spree aftwards as well.
Most of the goofy humor and gameplay mechanics in Capcoms’ remakes are being sanitized/censored not just by ideological activist purest, but also by share holders/investors whom religion supercedes everything in their life and is completely against overly sexualized women in video games.
This is a secondary reason games RE4 remake and Dead Rising remake were heavily censored.
When game companies open themselves up to the stock market their artistic freedom go straight out the window.
I wish Nintendo, and many other companies, would go private to eliminate all outside influence, but that will never happen.
They should buy Nintendo. Buy them Sega, Koei Tecmo, Bandai Namco, Toei, Capcom, Tatsunoko, Hitotsubashi, Kodansha, maybe Konami too and WBD.