Nintendo "laughed their a**** off" when Microsoft made a takeover bid.
In an oral history of the original Xbox, Microsoft's former director of third-party relations has revealed the reaction when the gaming giant's boss made his team deliver the pitch.
Kevin Bachus told Bloomberg: "Steve [Ballmer, ex-Microsoft CEO] made us go meet with Nintendo to see if they would consider being acquired.
"They just laughed their a**** off. Like, imagine an hour of somebody just laughing at you. That was kind of how that meeting went."
Meanwhile, head of business development Bob McBreen also discussed how Microsoft also met with Nintendo in January 2000 over plans for a joint venture where the former would build the hardware for the latter's games.
He said: "We actually had Nintendo in our building in January 2000 to work through the details of a joint venture where we gave them all the technical specs of the Xbox.
"The pitch was their hardware stunk, and compared to Sony PlayStation, it did.
"So the idea was, 'Listen, you're much better at the game portions of it with Mario and all that stuff. Why don't you let us take care of the hardware?' But it didn't work out."
Elsewhere in the piece, it's revealed Microsoft also made attempts to buy EA Games and Square Enix but both declined, and a move to acquire Midway didn't pan out.
