skip on 19 February 2008
In the nes days nintendo limited the number of titles that each developer could release on the platform per year, and they weeded out those that weren't up to standards.
"During the NES era, Nintendo maintained exclusive control over titles released for the system—the company had to approve every game, each third-party developer could only release up to five games per year, those games could not be released on another console within two years, and Nintendo was the exclusive manufacturer and supplier of NES cartridges." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System
