the reason you don't see it happen that often is because Nintendo is extremely conservative with their properties and doesn't like to do things unless they have full control agreements with smaller studios
and then the problem becomes that a budget for even a small Nintendo game, like a reimagining of a 2D Metroid, is probably going to be a higher budget than some of these Indie teams are used to because, again, Nintendo is extremely careful and takes its time with whatever they produce
I think what you basically end up with is a scenario where Nintendo, because of wanting to have oversight over their IPs entirely, where Nintendo is essentially having to help with the budget and having to put their team on working collectively with Indies through most of the process
so then you reach a point where Nintendo hypothetically might as well just make their own team to do the same thing.
The real question is if Nintendo is hesitant to get small indie teams to work on some of their retro more basic properties (i.e. 2D Metroid, some of the more simple Mario games, etc.), then why haven't they been willing to spend some more cash and create more studios? more employees?
to put into perspective, I believe the likes of Ubisoft, which is dramatically smaller than Nintendo, actually has way more employees than the big N
Nintendo needs to step up to the plate and hire on more developers, they are obsessed with being tight nit and on some projects its just not necessary. There's no reason that franchises like F-Zero, Punchout, Starfox, Pokemon (on home consoles), Kid Icarus- need to be essentially dead just because Nintendo refuses to have more than a bundle of key studios and instead of opening more teams just lets half of their IPs sit and collect dust
now obviously Nintendo does a far better job than, say, Sega, with their old properties. but still.
Nintendo not letting some of these Indie studios work on some of their lower profile deadish franchises AND not opening more of their own new studios is in the same vain of problems.
I see the preview for that new Indie game that's going to be on the Switch that looks like Advance Wars and I ask myself- what the hell Nintendo? you're telling me when you found out that team was successfully making an Advance Wars like game you didn't immediately considering tying the two together? It just at times shows Nintendo being a bit oblivious or stubborn with these things.
As some have mentioned, sometimes just the NAME of a game will push it sell a lot more and a lot of these indie games on the Switch will get a fraction as much attention as they would have had Nintendo done a collaboration with their own IP. Its like that game that came out recently that's mega SNES era Metroid-vania-ish, that everyone digs, its been raved about but will be forgotten because it lacks the big name. Imagine if it was actually an official Metroid game with things expanding the world
totally rambling but the general sentiment of Nintendo missing opportunities to use loads of their IPs with either more employees or enlisting Indie Developers is something I totally get. They need to be open to collabs more or just acquiring some of these talented small teams.
its like the small dev team behind Yooka Laylee- new 90-esque platforming games? Nintendo make a move quick, that is exactly the type of team you want to make a deal with to have a second party developer attached exclusively to your systems
