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IsawYoshi on 04 January 2014
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S.T.A.G.E. said:
Purple said:

Great OP but it will never happen under Iwata.

Nintendo have been winding down all western investments to focus exclusively on Japan and Japanese developers. I'm eagerly awaiting him coming out and blaming the West for poor Wii U and 3DS sales without any acknowledgement of the reason why that may be the case.

 

Edit: This is taken from someone else but it perfectly sums up Nintendo's attitude to Western devs..

From 1990-2000. Nintendo of America had production and management autonomy from Japan. NOA basically culminated its own production team, along a few co-designers, and started funding and producing games with developers.

DMA Design: Uni Racers, Body Harvest (Nintendo dropped it in 1997, Midway took it)
Angel Studios: Ken Griffey Baseball, Buggie Boogie (canceled)
Bits Studios: Warlocked, Riqa (canceled)
Rare: Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Goldeneye 007, Perfect Dark
Software Creations: Ken Griffey Baseball, Tin Star
Silicon Knights: Eternal Darkness (N64 version)
Left Field Productions: Kobey Bryant in NBA Courtside, Excitebike 64
Looking Glass Studio: Mini Racers (canceled)
Mass Media: Star Craft 64
H20: Tetrisphere
Saffire Corp: Nester's Funky Bowling, James Bond 007
Midway: Cruisn Series

Nintendo of America also procured the Ken Griffey and MLBPA license, NHL License, Kobe Bryant and NBA license, PGA license, Disney license, James Bond license, StarCraft license. Star Wars Episode I license. They were producing their own first-party games separate from Nintendo of Japan.

That all changed when Iwata transitioned from Global Marketing Chief to President. NOA Production was killed, and Nintendo of Japan's SPD Department took over all Western development (Star Fox Adventures, Geist, Eternal Darkness GC).

Henry Sterchi, Brian Ullrich, Ken Lobb, Ed Ridgeway, Jeff Hutt, Faran Thomason, and the whole crew left NOA to Microsoft and other developers. Since then, we've seen the Western model we have today. Western developers reporting directly to Japanese management, and pretty much making B/C sequels to Nintendo IPs.



Wow..that is eye opening. I knew Nintendo had issues with third parties, but damn. Iwata is really screwing the pooch.



Not even mentioning the fact that one of the very few western Nintendo devs there are, NST, was created to create games for the western market. They made 1080 and wave race for the gamecube, living up to their promise. Now all their making are Mario vs. DK games and Google Street view for Wii U. There's one more team, retro, that was supposed to make games for a western audience. They started making Metroid Prime, a western RPG a football game and another one at the same time (if mt memory serves me right). The development went slow so everything other than metroid got cancelled, and now they are making DK.