The art of Negotiation

How Nintendo boss silenced Steve Ballmer

Balls in the other court

By Nick Farrell: Thursday 06 January 2005, 09:10
NOW HE IS safely retired, the 77-year old former Nintendo boss Hiroshi Yamaushi is regaling Wired magazine about how he reverted to abuse to silence the mighty Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Apparently Microsoft was making a bid to buy Nintendo for absolutely huge amounts of money. Vole was confident that Nintendo would take it. The Game Cube wasn't doing particularly well at the time and there was a lot of money involved. Ballmer himself showed up at the negotiations to have a quiet word.

However Yamaushi didn't like the deal, which he saw as a loss on a level similar to World War Two. He said he ranted a bit about Japanese values and identity but it went no-where. So in the end he said in Japanese "suck my yellow balls Mr Ballmer".