Nintendo isn't interested in developer acquisitions - Iwata

Japanese console giant Nintendo isn't currently interested in acquiring new development assets or industry competitors despite the firm's huge cash reserves, according to company president Satoru Iwata.

Speaking with French newspaper Les Echos, Iwata said that the company's focus is on building strong relationships with external developers and working closely with them rather than acquiring them outright.

He argued that an investment in a company carried no guarantee of favourable results - perhaps referring back to Nintendo's recent estrangement from companies in which had had previously invested heavily, such as Rare, Silicon Knights and Left Field.

Nintendo's new approach to relationships with external developers would appear to be characterised by its deals with companies such as British studio Kuju Entertainment, which is an independent developer working on a major Nintendo property - namely the Advance Wars license.

The company's last balance sheet showed that it has over 5 billion Euro in cash and other liquid investments - a balance which has caused difficulty for the company in the past (it recorded its first six-month loss in decades recently when the plummeting value of the dollar wiped Yen value off its overseas investments) but which has been seen as putting it in a strong position to acquire development or technology firms.

Earlier this year, the Japanese business press claimed that the company had set up a large "war chest" for acquiring key new technologies and innovations, although nothing has yet come of this move. More recently, Iwata told the Nintendo strategy conference in Tokyo that he was interested in increasing the company's investment in Japanese media giant Bandai - although a full acquisition of the company, whose huge library of popular Japanese media franchises would be a treasure trove for any platform holder, is apparently not on the cards.