Did you know that Nintendo owns a Major League Baseball team?

Keeping true to their tradition of owning and operating some off the wall businesses, Nintendo of America saw that the Seattle Mariners were hitting a rough financial patch in the 1990’s.  With Help of Nintendo of Japan, they purchased  60% of the team for a whopping 100 million dollars.

In 2004, Nintendo of Japan gave the Majority ownership to Nintendo of America.  This little tidbit of trivia made me wonder what would have happened if Nintendo’s other ventures outside the realm of video games had taken off?  Would they have been as successful as a company with a chain of Love Hotels, or Taxi cabs?  What about their failed TV station (maybe it would have become something similar to G4TV?) or their company that sold instant rice?

I think that Nintendo’s courage to venture into businesses outside of their current focus is what has made them a solid company.  Without the failures of the past (and future) they would have nothing to base their successes off of.

Could you imagine Nintendo branching out to other oddball ventures today, with their success in video games?

What do the fans think about Nintendo’s ownership?  Is the video below accurate?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WksBqoUukN0[/youtube]