Nintendo is it “the leading game publisher” that Saudi Arabia wishes to acquire through the 50 billion riyals ($13.3 billion) what does Savvy Gaming Group want to invest? This is indeed the legitimate question that arises when we see that the PIF (the investment fund of Mohammed Ben Salmane) has just increased for the 3rd time its capital investment in Nintendo. As Bloomberg reportsto date, Saudi Arabia now holds an 8.3% stake in the Kyoto firm, just a month after increasing its stake on January 12, 2023. Things therefore seem to be accelerating on the side of Mohammed Ben Salman, who has understood that the soft-power will allow his country to culturally integrate the West and Asian countries in a sustainable way.
Nintendo is not the only video game publisher to be targeted by Saudi Arabia, since Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Nexon, Capcom, KOEI TECMO and Take-Two Interactive are also in the sights, knowing that the country has also strengthened its position recently with a capital increase. Now, Mohammed Ben Salmane owns 5.8% of Electronic Arts (compared to 5.1% a few months ago), but also 6.8% of Take-Two Interactive (compared to 5.3% recently), all of this while buying respectively 2 million and 3 million shares at the end of 2022. We also recall that the company SNK (NeoGeo) has been 96.18% owned by Saudi Arabia since February 2022, already a year ago.
