Time Extension recently conducted an insightful interview with Bert Reiner, a former executive at Coleco, shedding light on the company’s past and its almost groundbreaking collaboration with Nintendo. Reiner revealed that there was a pivotal moment in history when Nintendo nearly acquired and marketed Coleco’s ‘ColecoVision’ in Japan back in 1982. However, negotiations ultimately fell through, leading to a significant turn of events in the gaming industry.
According to Reiner, the proposed deal involved Coleco offering the console to Nintendo at a price 10% below the wholesale rate, providing a potentially lucrative opportunity for both parties. Despite the initial negotiations, Nintendo insisted on pursuing its own manufacturing and marketing strategy, offering a deal that would have resulted in lower returns for Coleco. With an impasse reached, the deal collapsed, prompting Nintendo to forge ahead with the development of its own console, the Famicom, which later became a groundbreaking success in the gaming world.
Interestingly, this missed opportunity wasn’t the first interaction between Coleco and Nintendo. Prior to the failed negotiations, the two companies had collaborated on a deal to include the popular arcade game Donkey Kong with every ColecoVision, significantly boosting the sales of the American video game system.
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