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Soundwave on 27 August 2014
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padib said:
Soundwave said:

The end result is Nintendo is willing to fund tons of Japanese developed projects, but not very many Western developed projects at all. 

I dunno, maybe bias isn't the 100% the correct word, but it's probably not far off either. 

I think you really missed TLS's point. Re-read his post, he seems to be arguing that Iwata took over NOA due to incompetence on the part of Reggie to solidify the american strategy.

One of his arguments is that Retro actually expanded post-Iwata from only Metroid to Metroid + DK + more.

The other argument seems to be that Reggie didn't do a good job at growing the American strategy and should have looked into the purchasing of American devs at the Wii's peak. In other words what you're arguing is Iwata's fault, TLS is arguing is actually Reggie's fault.

I think that's a reach. Iwata is fully in control along with a few other select higher ups at Nintendo's board (Miyamoto, Takeda). 

Never once in his 12 years at Nintendo have I ever heard Reggie state or mention that he has any ability to greenlight actual game projects or decide to expand a studio. Ditto for anyone at NOE. 

NCL controls all that. NOA/NOE are just puppet distribution centers nowadays. Iwata could've expanded Retro when ever he wanted to. Could've done it in 2005. 2006. 2007. 2008. 2009. 2010. 2011. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, etc. etc. etc. 

I think Purple's theory is right -- Iwata is a micro-manager. I think some of the NOA president thing is also corporate politics -- if there's unrest among Nintendo's investors, Iwata can "step down" or demote himself as president of NOA and say "see? I demoted myself, now give me another 2 years to turn things around". It's a pretty shrewd tactic actually, because it's not like NOA had any real autonomy anyway. It's a position he can use as a sacrifical lamb to step down from if some factions of the shareholders become too unahppy with him (which might happen if say ... that Quality of Life thing flops).