To add a crazy rumor to this thread - I heard some buzz about Softbank approaching Nintendo to buy the 5% Nintendo is planning to buy-back itself - and being turned down.
Slim chance of it happening, but if it did, it would be interesting b/c one of the hold-ups that Iwata had with launching a tablet or phone in the investor Q&A was that Nintendo didn't really have any mobile partnerships and implicitly suggesting that it would make it hard to enter a really crowded space like that.
With Softbank ready to acquire T-Mobile and merge it with Sprint, combined with their already strong presence in Japan - it would give Nintendo instant and priority access to 100 million subscribers in the US, and 30 million subscribers in Japan. Softbank is apparently focused on building a mobile empire over the next 5 years so if their financing plans come through after T-Mobile and they can turn it around - they should keep making acquisitions into markets that Nintendo could then have a presence in.
So anyways, not happening, but interesting to consider the possibilities. It's an exciting time to be on the M&A circuit
In case anyone is interested, Softbank most recently failed at acquiring Universal - and they own stakes in Yahoo Japan, GungHo, UStream, and SuperCell