There is no debate about whether Nintendo has been distancing itself from Western developers. That is very clear for all to see. The issue some people have taken here, is with the misinformation and spin that has been included in what would have been an outstanding OP, made worse by some very generalised assumptions made later on in the thread.

Yes, we do need more posts like Soundwave's OP in the forums, but only if they're based on, and backed up with fact.

If that's the case, then it's all fine by me. I couldn't care less about the details.

The only thing I could criticize is the importance you and many people are giving to such details, which I believe is being more destructive than constructive (once there is no consensus between you and Soundwave). So I have a suggestion for you: create that amazing OP you wanted to see and post it here for us to read. Instead of just criticizing the OP, losing focus from the main message and engaging into small "fights" that are not worth the time (at least in my opinion), you would be emphasizing the main points with an enhanced and fact-proven article (with all the correct details backed up by sources). That would be outstanding :) Could you do that?

They understood the West because Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa were in charge of NOA and Yamauchi basically relegated at some decision making to them. 

That's why Rareware was allowed to make games for Nintendo in the first place. Nintendo also did respond to gaming trends back then, for example the arcade fighter back then was like what FPS are to the market today, and Nintendo greenlit Killer Instinct specifically for the US market. Nintendo Sports was for the Western markets. 

You have things like Starcraft 64, at one point Nintendo was actually working with the developers that would go on to create Grand Theft Auto 3/4/5 (DMA Design, now known as Rockstar North). They were one of Nintendo's "Dream Team" members of largely Western based studios tasked to bring games to the Nintendo 64. 

GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Star Wars games (several of them), Starcraft 64, Killer Instinct, Kobe Bryant NBA Courtside, Ken Griffey Jr. MLB, Donkey Kong Country, the original Star Fox (SNES), the founding of Retro Studios were all largely due to NOA, these are not "lucky breaks", but natural pay offs to an American division that actually used to have some autonomy in doing things.

There's also a few games that Nintendo was working on through NOA that never got released like FX Fighter (a 3D fighter for the SNES) and Riqa, a Tomb Raider type game for the N64.  

If NOA's hands were not tied by the horrible cartridge-only console decision with the N64, I think the N64 would've easily sold 50+ million worldwide.

If you want people to focus on the message instead of the details, leave out the details. You cant  expect people to see something they beleive is skewed or wrong, and simply ignore it. And since the main point being true in the OP is supposedly because the reasoning in the OP, it would make sense to talk about them.

EDIT:

You cant tell other people they aren't allowed to find the details important just because you dont.

If they see something wrong and put it right they are not ignoring it, are they? I just think it's much better to be constructive and improve what is faulty but has potential than to waste it and be stuck on a negative and destructive position.

To me, people that criticize the details of a good message is most probably because they are not comfortable with that message and want to destroy it (or at least cloud it).

Regarding the importance of the details, that's just my opinion (see the underlined).

The original post is full of incorrect information, people should do their own research:

1. You claim Iwata sold Rare. Iwata didn't own Rare. The Stamper brothers owned Rare and they sold a majority share to Microsoft. Rare did attempt to sell to Nintendo, but it was Yamauchi's decision to turn them down, not Iwata.

2. You claim Iwata had nothing to do with Retro studios. Miyamoto was the one who made the decision to give Retro a shot with the Metroid license. Retro was purchased by Nintendo in May 2002 and invested heavily in the company.

3. You claim Factor 5 was cut loose by Iwata. The fact is that Factor 5 was not in any way owned by Nintendo, but by LucasArts. Factor 5 began developing for other consoles because the GameCube flopped and LucasArts wanted to expand the profitability of the studio in order to sustain them. It wasn't Iwata's decision, it was the decision of LucasArts and Factor 5 based on the failure of GameCube.

4. You claim that Western Studios began leaving under Iwata when it is a fact that they began abandoning Nintendo during the N64 era when Western studios began focusing on Sony consoles instead of Nintendo consoles. Unlike some of your examples, some of these departures are directly the fault of Nintendo prior to Iwata. A huge example is Nintendo second party DMA/Rockstar North. Nintendo had a deal with them to be the studio's publisher. DMA developed Uniracers, Body Harvest, Space Station Silicon Valley, and Grandtheft Auto - Nintendo during the N64 era dropped them as a studio, opting out of publishing their games because they would not appeal to the Japanese market. This was not Iwata, but rather the previous leadership. Iwata never, ever dropped a studio because the games wouldn't appeal to Japan, but the previous leadership did just that with one of the most important studios of the past 20 years.

5. You claim that Nintendo "stripped NoA of any real power" but there haven't been any such moves at all. What power are you talking about? When was it stripped away? NoA is simply Nintendo's publishing and localization office for North America, it is the equivalent of NCL, NoE, NoK, etc... If Iwata was biased towards Japan in regards to NoA, then NoA would have a Japanese CEO, not an American one. All of the other International offices are run by Japanese presidents, except NoA, which has been run by Reggie Fils Aime since he replaced Kimishima in 2006.