Nintendo/Iwata's Bias Against The West

[lord_of_flood]

Soundwave said:

The mental gymnastics some Iwata defenders have to jump through to say that there isn't a dramatic decline in Western funded/developed games (particularly games that don't feature Japanese created character IP) is hilarious.

Nintendo 2nd Party 1994-2001 (Lincoln/Arakawa-era)

GoldenEye
Perfect Dark
Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie
Conker's Bad Fur Day
Mario Party 1/2/3/4
NBA Courtside
Ken Griffey Jr. MLB
Starcraft 64
Killer Instinct/Gold
Jet Force Gemini
Excitebike 64
Pilotwings 64
Donkey Kong Country 1/2/3
Eternal Darkness
Various Star Wars titles
Tetrisphere
Mario Tennis/Golf 64

Iwata-Era (2002-today):

The Last Story
Pandora's Tower
Line Attack Heroes
Endless Ocean 1/2
Excitetruck/bots
Metroid Prime 1/2/3
DKCR/Tropical Freeze
Bayonetta 2
Fatal Frame IV/V
Hyrule Warriors
Punch-Out!
The Wonderful 101
Devil's Third
Dynamic Slash (Zangeki no Reginleiv)
Mario Strikers
Donkey Kong: Barrell Blast


We go from about 90% of their 2nd party production coming from the West to it being reduced to like 30% in the Iwata era (must be a coincidence though right?).

At a time when the Japanese market shrinks and the Western market rises. It really makes no sense on Nintendo's part.

A few corrections:

Pre-Iwata era: Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Jet Force Gemini weren't published by Nintendo in the West (or in the case of Conker, at all). Also, I believe the only Nintendo-published Star Wars title was Shadows of the Empire. Everything else was published by LucasArts.

Iwata era: Add Geist, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Art Academy games, Battalion Wars, and Pilotwings Resort to the list.

When those corrections are taken into account, I think the individual number of Western-developed games in each era ends up being very similar.

This isn't me defending Nintendo though, as I believe they need to do more Western expansion as well.