Reggie has no power, he wasn't even the CEO, just the COO (which he still is today).
NOA has no power to create games or greenlight projects on their own.
NOA's power was stripped after Yamauchi retired. Before then, he would let Howard Lincoln, Minoru Arakawa and others at NOA do a lot more with autonomy .... things like the discovery of Rare and subsequent development of Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye, and other hits, the idea to create Retro Studios, the Star Wars games Nintendo used to get, NBA Courtside, Ken Griffey Jr., Nintendo Sports, etc. all of that came from NOA in the past.
Today NOA is nothing but a distribution channel and a rather crappy marketing division, and nothing else.
It's not a coincidence that Rare/Factor 5/Silicon Knights/Left Field/etc. were all given the boot and NST was scaled back dramatically over the years also (though it seems now they are finally staffing up again).
