Nintendo is fine to work with ... as long as you do what Nintendo (Japan) says. That means it doesn't matter if you spend 18 months making a dinosaur planet game, if they want you to change direction and turn it into a Star Fox game ... then that's what you're doing. No debate, no argument.
Western devs are too much about "lets sit around a board room and get everyone's input and see what everyone feels like making" ... that's not how Nintendo operates.
Nintendo is a highly hierarchal Japanese company. You listen and take orders from your superiors, to not do so is an insult.
That's how development works in Japan too, if you're a new developer at Nintendo you're not going to get to make what you want. You have to pay your dues in the company for years and then maybe you get into a higher management position where you have actual input on the games themselves.
It's not really a surprise that NST since around the time described in this league, has been basically minimized to a tiny studio that only works on Mario Vs. DK games.
