Tales of the Abyss?

Damn, how did I not noticed that before!  Now I'm even more hyped for the 3DS!

It is nice to hear Iwata saying he wants better third-party relationships, but like Rolstoppable said, Nintendo for the most part isn't the one at fault for the currently shaky relationship.  It more has to do with the third-party's general misconceptions with the gaming industry as a whole than with Nintendo creating any barriers between them. Nintendo's increased efforts might help, but the third-parties are the ones who need to make the bigger concessions.

Also, I hope he's not just referring to Japanese third-parties, as it's more the Western companies that currently shun Nintendo.

I'd say an EU release is more likely than NA at least, at there's a precedent for something like it (Ubisoft publishing Eternia and dropping in the old US script).

That's a great step. Nintendo definitely are learning from their past mistakes. My only complaint though is... where the hell are the new IPs? That software list consists almost entirely of PORTS, spin-offs and some sequels! That isn't right.

Execs from Japanese 3rd parties disagree with you :P

And let's get one thing straight, Nintendo doesn't need 3rd parties, they've shown this over the years. In about 2-3 years though, 3rd parties will need Nintendo if they want to put their games on a dedicated mobile machine with buttons and 3D.

Yes, I'm sure the president of Alchemist surely speaks for all Japanese execs. :P

Yeah, I'd say Wii's really driven this point home, given it didn't turn out like DS (which 3rd parties eventually showed up to, at least in Japan).  Nintendo doesn't need 3rd parties to drive up an insane userbase, but they do need them to maintain a sustained healthy platform ecosphere.

Nintendo already thought that they didn't need 3rd parties with the N64. Back with the N64 they advertised the "dream team" that only made quality 3rd party games and followed all of Nintendo's strict rules. Nintendo found out really quickly that that doesn't work when Sony came out with the PS1 and wiped the floor with them. Due to the damage that Nintendo did to their 3rd party relationships they drove developers to the PSP and the only thing that saved the DS's 3rd party support was that it sold significantly more than the PSP.

They've been struggling ever since to regain 3rd parties, but they refuse to play Microsoft and Sony's game of paying publishers.

I was actually talking about the fact that all major JP execs keep saying that western developers are ahead of them. It was in response to your "Western 3rd parties are dumb..." statement.

Nintendo has made profits on N64 and GC era. They do not need 3rd parties. Nintendo is courting 3rd parties because, and a lot of people are not gonna like this statement, but Nintendo do not appeal to the dudebro audience, which is huge nowadays. 3rd party games fixes that, but Nintendo does not need them, 3rd parties on the other hand NEED Nintendo. The 3DS will easily sell 200 million with or without 3rd parties, with 300 million being very possible. Who wouldn't want a piece of that pie?