Eh fair enough. I don't think any of this really contradicts Nintendo currently having awful relations with Western developers though and focussing exclusively on Japanese games. It doesn't matter if Iwata started it or not, he has made no effort to rectify it and has continued to operate in a Japanese centric manner intentionally weakening NOA.

OK, I'll make it easier for you then, for my questions at least.

Soundwave said:

You need to go back and study what NOA was like in the 90s. They certainly had (sometimes very broad) power to greenlight game projects on their own. 

Most of Arakawa/Lincoln's work in the 90s was quickly undone after Mr. Iwata became president (offically in May 2002, though really he was already operating in that position for some time before that, Yamauchi basically effectively retired from day to day operations in 2000).

Can you elaborate? Where's the source?

We know studios like Factor 5 and Silicon Knights wanted to continue their relationship with Nintendo. So did Rare. Nintendo is the one that ended those relationships. We also know they haven't been very proactive in replacing much of this lost production either.

Source? (considering there is evidence to the contrary)

No, Nintendo still had very strong Western relationships up until the early 2000s. NOA probably had its peak autonomy in 2001 or so when they were allowed to market and sell things like Perfect Dark, Starcraft 64, and Conker's Bad Fur Day. 

It takes a nose dive after Iwata takes over as president, and as president the buck stops with him. None of that would've happened if he didn't want it to happen. 

Also Iwata pushing for Silicon Knights to make a Metal Gear remake instead of bringing something new to the table just perfectly illustrates what Nintendo thinks of Western studio development -- they're basically just cattle to work on Japanese IP that the Japanese teams are too busy to do themselves. Eternal Darkness was greenlit under Lincoln/Arakawa, but it never would have been under Iwata. 

It's the same philosphy they basically employ today ... Retro, Next Level Games, Monster Games are basically the only three studios in the West they will work with, and they're only allowed to work on Nintendo IP that Nintendo themselves is too busy to work on over in Japan. And only one game at a time.

Source?

Note too when I say Iwata, I am referring to the general "Iwata-era" which also includes people like Miyamoto and Takeda taking on higher roles on Nintendo's board of directors.

(The following repeated from my previous post)

I have to say, I had previously been impressed by the way the OP on this thread was set out; it made me wonder whether I should be looking at things in a new light. But on further investigation, I have so far have found absolutely nothing on the net that supports your claims. In fact the only evidence I've found actually supports those posts debunking your OP.

Regarding everything bolded in the quotes above - these are very broad, sweeping statements with no evidence to back them up. Can you link to the source info to back up these statements?

And regarding the underlined, do I take this as you moving the goalposts since it has now been proved that many of the moves you cited as being down to Iwata, in fact happened before he became president?

Nothing. But what they need is japanesey games because that's what Nintendo are famous for. Nintendo should focus on games that make them speical. 

I'm sure some western devs are capable of making great Nintendo games too, given the chance, but the suggestion people make, that Nintendo needs more western devs, indicated that they think Nintendo should be making games that are more like xbox games. Games like that won't sell that well on a Nintendo console and they won't win over xbox gamers who already have lots of games like that. Nintendo does need a range of games, but they do need to be Nintendoy.

It doesn't matter really if Silicon Knights still had stock held by Nintendo. The point is under Lincoln/Arakawa they were allowed to work on a game like Eternal Darkness (which was greenlight BEFORE Iwata).

Under Iwata, he basically let them work on Metal Gear (a Japanese IP, pretty much in line with how the Iwata era would go). When that didn't sell as well as they hoped, Nintendo basically never worked with them again.

Perhaps there is some mutality in the decision (I can't blame a Western dev for wanting to leave if they're never allowed to work on original ideas), but why not then replace Silicon Knights, Factor 5, Rare, etc. with comparable studios?

Iwata did none of that. He simply let relationships here lapse and brought in no new Western developers to really replace this lost output.

Jumpin, Hedra and myself have proven you have spouted misinformation in this thread and yet you refuse to address them. Why? that is my question

so you have no solid evidence for your assertion, but an assumption of what you think happened? ok what a joke 

edit: whoops wrong poster. Sorry hedra

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.

Those games don't sell well on Nintendo platforms because in large part due to Iwata's mishandling of Nintendo's Western studios. 

Instead of keeping the FPS audience that Nintendo basically owned coming out of the N64-era, they basically just let Microsoft have it without much of a fight at all. If you gotta sell Rare, ok fine, but why not invest in something a little more ambitious than freaking Geist? 

Western games used to sell just fine on the SNES and N64 ... GameCube and Wii U (the Wii is a bit of outlier being a hot craze for a few years which then fizzled out almost as quickly as it built up) is where we see pronunced problems with Western content selling on Nintendo consoles. 

Which isn't really surprising ... if you're trying to sell to Western gamers, shouldn't you have (I dunno) like some actual Western content in terms of exclusives? 

Conker, Perfect Dark, JFG are all Nintendo financed titles, I believe they let Rare publish them to take the heat off the M-rating on two of the games and to give Rare a little bit of greater autonomy. 

I'm keeping portable games out simply because Nintendo didn't make a lot of portable content by the mid-90s period. When Pokemon broke out in the late 90s, then Nintendo started to take portable development a lot more seriously again. 

Congrats for your outstanding article. It has well researched info I was not aware of and found it very interesting and clarifying. I had already the impression that japanese companies, as a rule, are very closed and only focused on themselves but the situation with Nintendo seems to be fatally dangerous.

The japanese market is much less significant nowadays and Nintedo has been disinvesting from the West?! That's suicide! Besides, Iwata and Miyamoto not understanding the western market is no excuse at all. If they understand money, they should realize that Nintendo in America and Europe should have more power and resources, not less. And, if they don't understand the West, they should give those regions more independence, not less. This is common sense.

Regarding the Minecraft thing (and eventually many other cases that may follow the same paradigm), that's not understanding the West, that's being xenophobic. Minecraft is an arcade game that has nothing to do with any culture. They ignore it because they find it to be developed by people from the West. How sad...