WI: Nintendo bought the Harry Potter rights

in OTL, Nintendo tried to acquire the rights to the Harry Potter series from J.K Rowling but the deal failed as Rowling decided to sell the rights to Warner Bros.

But as the title suggests, what if J.K Rowling decided to give the rights to Nintendo instead of Warner Bros
 
Eventually lease the movies to Warner Bros perhaps?

The game's would be quiet good, imagine a nintendo made Harry Potter on the wii, it would be rather good.
 
Nintendo makes a Fire Emblem style tactical RPG series for the GBA and Gamecube that is rather successful.

Nintendo sublets the film rights to Universal, who have the same contract stipulations from JKR that Warner Bros originally had, leading to most of the UK-based same talent pool being used.

The Potter license and the fact that the games are just reskinned ports of Fire Emblem means that Nintendo ends the 6th generation on a stronger note.

Nothing much else changes.
 
Eventually lease the movies to Warner Bros perhaps?

The game's would be quiet good, imagine a nintendo made Harry Potter on the wii, it would be rather good.
wouldn't the acquiring be a few years before wii development started tho? butterfly effect so a different console
 
wouldn't the acquiring be a few years before wii development started tho? butterfly effect so a different console

Down the line their would be. Maybe a game on the N64 at first and the handhelds before the wii perhaps? I mentioned the wii because it would be cool to use the controls as if you where waving a wand and casting a spell that way. on handheld and the 64 it would be a normal handheld/console game really.
 
Down the line their would be. Maybe a game on the N64 at first and the handhelds before the wii perhaps? I mentioned the wii because it would be cool to use the controls as if you where waving a wand and casting a spell that way. on handheld and the 64 it would be a normal handheld/console game really.
they'd probably make a special wand controller for it like the wii wheel for mario kart, power glove etc.
 
Apparently they wanted to make a Japanese styled game, or with Japanese styled art. I wouldn't automatically say animesque, but it may be the best catch-all term. As she wanted it to be English (British) in tone and everything, they were out of the running pretty quick. If she did sell them the rights she would be a lot less wealthy, though through creative accounting and flooding the market with merchandise, Warner Brothers grabbed the vast quantity of all income not related to books. I also think the Harry Potter game series would be a bit... Meh? Not sure. EA Games had the rights for the games I think, and whoever made the ones for Game Boy and Game Boy Advance were... well, they could only work with so much. Would the series be only one Harry Potter game a book? And would Nintendo only buy the rights to use it in video games? Considering how the rights to Pokémon are split between three companies, I imagine that Nintendo would be happy to pay a little less and only get the rights for games. Just so long as they make sure the contracts give them rights to trump movies, so that they cannot be sued by some American film company if there are similarities between their products.
 
they'd probably make a special wand controller for it like the wii wheel for mario kart, power glove etc.
I pray not. I played the first three games on PC (as in the PC games, a bit different from consoles), and I loved them, the second being a nostalgic favorite. Think those were made by a different group than the console games. Also played the GBA chamber of secrets, which was bleh. Played the PC Lego Harry Potter (the original, unplayable one from twelve years ago. Couldn't find out how it worked) as well as the two Lego Harry Potter games that cover the whole game. The first was grand, the second looked and felt wonky. Borrowed Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 for DS, and gave up eve before getting out of the Dursley's home. Harry Potter And the Prisoner of Azkaban for GameCube was grand.

Aaaaaand then we get to The Goblet of Fire. They made it the same everywhere. The PC, each console... No puzzles. No magical atmosphere, secret passages, bonus Bertie Bott Beans, secret cards... just pressing a button to wave a wand. If Nintendo started their GameCube games like that, it would be a disaster. Heck, I read that for the first two games each console had differences in story and gameplay to an extent, as well as puzzles. The expanded universe may also suffer quite a bit.
 
Wouldn't anyone be able to outbid Nintendo for this? I can't imagine Nintendo sinking that much into the license where they could outbid a major studio. The exception being if the license is available very early and no one puts too much thought into it.

If Nintendo gets it, as said, they could definitely pass it on for huge profit. And maybe it gets Nintendo more active in film, so another Mario Bros. movie (a reboot obviously), maybe a Zelda movie, could go ahead by the end of the 2000s.

Nintendo makes a Fire Emblem style tactical RPG series for the GBA and Gamecube that is rather successful.

Nintendo sublets the film rights to Universal, who have the same contract stipulations from JKR that Warner Bros originally had, leading to most of the UK-based same talent pool being used.

The Potter license and the fact that the games are just reskinned ports of Fire Emblem means that Nintendo ends the 6th generation on a stronger note.

Nothing much else changes.

Tactical RPGs aren't popular in the West. I couldn't see a Fire Emblem-type game being Nintendo's use of the Harry Potter license. So probably a more Nintendo-ish version of the OTL Harry Potter games, or perhaps a more traditional JRPG, which if for the N64 would give it a huge RPG which it never had.
 
Wouldn't anyone be able to outbid Nintendo for this? I can't imagine Nintendo sinking that much into the license where they could outbid a major studio. The exception being if the license is available very early and no one puts too much thought into it.

If Nintendo gets it, as said, they could definitely pass it on for huge profit. And maybe it gets Nintendo more active in film, so another Mario Bros. movie (a reboot obviously), maybe a Zelda movie, could go ahead by the end of the 2000s.
I think Nintendo would be wary about having their brands used like that. I believe that the general opinion of Mario and Zelda things produced by American companies was that they were awful, though to be fair those were mostly early on, before those games had much depth to them. I am unsure if Nintendo would want a film company to get merchandising rights from them either. They would need to see just how well an investment could be Kadence if they produced a movie. It would require a lot of investment in staff, actors, and such and might be difficult to make viable as for exports, from a Japanese targeted audience. Having it targeted at the Anglophonic world would raise questions among Nintendo stockholders and long-the employees and executives, who are rather proud of all the time and let love put into their products and making them respected. I am talking mostly about the Nintendo stuff here though. Having the Harry Potter film and merchandising rights sold on seems good if they are repaid a great deal more than they paid Rowling and kept the game rights, but I am unsure if they would be allowed to do so piecemeal or at all. Depends how the contract is written. The terms for a video game company would probably be different for a film company, and Rowling would desire to get a portion of the gross, given she was the author and all that.
 
Apparently they wanted to make a Japanese styled game, or with Japanese styled art. I wouldn't automatically say animesque, but it may be the best catch-all term. As she wanted it to be English (British) in tone and everything, they were out of the running pretty quick. If she did sell them the rights she would be a lot less wealthy, though through creative accounting and flooding the market with merchandise, Warner Brothers grabbed the vast quantity of all income not related to books. I also think the Harry Potter game series would be a bit... Meh? Not sure. EA Games had the rights for the games I think, and whoever made the ones for Game Boy and Game Boy Advance were... well, they could only work with so much. Would the series be only one Harry Potter game a book? And would Nintendo only buy the rights to use it in video games? Considering how the rights to Pokémon are split between three companies, I imagine that Nintendo would be happy to pay a little less and only get the rights for games. Just so long as they make sure the contracts give them rights to trump movies, so that they cannot be sued by some American film company if there are similarities between their products.
Looks for nintendo Harry Potter here... nintendo design looks pretty like the end deal plus anime is a catch all Term we could get something not different cowboy bepop or Gundam in Style.
 
Looks for nintendo Harry Potter here... nintendo design looks pretty like the end deal plus anime is a catch all Term we could get something not different cowboy bepop or Gundam in Style.
I can see the problems. Bringing first years in by boat...
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
wouldn't the acquiring be a few years before wii development started tho? butterfly effect so a different console

Actually, the Wii would have likely been in early development, probably conceptual stage, by this point. So most likely the basic concept would have shown up at some point, but it might have been a bit different and might not have been called the Wii.

And Harry Potter might have been the headliner of Nintendo's western market for a number of years.

And I think people are making a big mistake. Just because there are no Harry Potter movies, doesn't mean that there can't be Harry Potter games. In fact it might just be to their benefit as they'll have more artistic license to make the games to how they want it and the movies won't be such a crutch.
 
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