Original report comes from the paywalled The Information, that they tried to sell to private equity for $100B-$150B, but that it was short lived and fell through. This backs what a lot of us have been thinking based on the moves Sharma has been making, that they track with a sell-off of the Xbox brand.
Iwata is just different. It definitely won’t happen today.
When did Nintendo do mass layoffs? Nintendo is just not in a position where they buy lot of companies, then mass layoff (or cut salary in halve) when a game does disappoint. So you are right that it won’t happen today, but for different reasons. I’m convinced that they would probably take a hit themselves, instead laying off huge part of their developers. This is one of the few things I actually like about Nintendo; and overall I don’t like Nintendo anymore. The mass layoffs issue is a Western world phenomenon mostly (but not exclusively, just a tendency).