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Gabe Newell Once Considered Joint Venture With Nintendo
The "what ifs" of the video game industry's trajectory are monumental to contemplate, such as if Nintendo had gone through developing a console with Sony or the recent rumor that Microsoft is considering buying out EA. One such rumor that's floated around or some time is whether Valve and Nintendo have ever considered working with each other. Apparently, they did.
Gabe Newell's son, Grey Newell, appeared on a live stream with Valve News Network's Tyler McVicker and was discussing if he had met any celebrities before. Regarding whether he had met Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto or the late Satoru Iwata, he casually mentioned how his father met with one of them (which is not clear) seven years ago:
"My dad was meeting him about some joint thing...project. I think it was about the original Wii and it ended up not happening. But we stopped by in Japan [...] This was like probably seven years ago. It was super casual.”
You can watch the live stream below. This particular conversation starts at 2:22:17.
[Source: Valve News Network via Nintendo Everything]
Our Take
It's likely buried history at this point, but the prospects of what Newell discussed with Miyamoto or Iwata are fascinating. It's likely that they briefly considered Valve developing a title for the Wii, but what if that had led to more projects down the line? Considering the Nintendo Switch is built on technology outside Nintendo with an Nvidia processor, perhaps Valve could've played a part in the console's technical development. Ah, the possibilities are endless.
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