Very true. Nintendo's totalitarian mentality in the 80s and up until the mid-90s worked when Atari was going tits up and when Sega was their only real competition. When Sony entered the game and allowed developers more freedom, the it was the beginning of the end for Nintendo and it has been a steady decline since(except for the Wii which was an anomoly whose success came from a fad/gimmick).  With Sony/Microsoft catering for third parties, almost everyone is done with Nintendo. I sincerely don't think the Wii U will sell more than the Gamecube at this rate and I don't have one iota of sympathy for the company. I love their games and have very fond memories of the NES/SNES/N64 era(GCN also to a lesser extent) but their mentality is puts me off enough to actually consider NOT buying a Wii U.

Not a very useful comment. 

There are two discussions here:

Can Nintendo rightfully do this or not?

WIll this benefit Nintendo (as a profit seeking firm) or not? 

But of course you want to simplify things into fans vs. non-fans. There are many people on both sides of this question from a variety of backgrounds. 

Oh yeah, that was Conker's bad fur day...

Thats the grey area though, because the money generated is not solely generated because of their content. Anyone can put up a lets play video, but not anyone can do it and make money off of it.

Ultimately thats what we debating here.

1. Dont see how that has any relevance to my stance on it. As a matter of principle, I do not feel that they are entitled to any of the profit.

My stance on this topic is not about whats legal and whats not, its about what i feel is the right thing to do. So yeah Nintendo's analysis means absolutely nothing to me in this regard.

Well, this seems a bit stupid of Nintendo. They're fully within their rights to do it and I understand Nintendo are fiercely protective of their IP. However, the vast majority of publishers and developers have left the youtubers alone because they realised it was having a positive impact on their bottom line. Doing this just pisses off the people that were giving Nintendo extra coverage. They're effectively reducing online "word of mouth" marketing.

You can give links all you want. Learn something about intellectual properties and the use of them then come back. Fact of the matter is that if Nintendo and the others weren't around he wouldn't have a channel. He is using portions of thier IP's for his own/sole gain. 

I think it's you that fails to see the big picture. This is not hypotheticals. It's IP's used without consent, that is the bottom line. It's copywritten materials used without permission. You may own the material for use, but not for distrobution in any form. 

The same could be said of Sony, Microsoft or any big name publisher. Yet I'm not aware of any other publisher that has implemented a system like this. When youtube identified all these videos as copyrighted material, the big publishers asked video makers to contact them about any problems and they'd get them sorted (no financial penalty involved).

Nintendo are fully in their rights to introduce this system and to protect their IP. However, that doesn't mean it's a good idea, and the fact that other publishers haven't introduced this is telling. All Nintendo is achieving with this is to reduce the online "word of mouth" marketing that youtubers provide.

This seems to be one whole big non problem. People who are anti Nintendo see this as the biggest insult to gamers ever and mortally wounds the Wii U brand, and people who are pro Nintendo seem to think it's their right to copyright their own material and that the Wii U will still have massive boosts in hardware sales regardless when Zelda comes out, as well as smaller boosts for other main titles this year. Then there is a small fraction of in betweeners that typically don't care as it doesn't really concern them (this is the boat I'm in) or is a Nintendo fan who thinks this is a terrible plan, but not really enough people to really drive a discussion. Basically everyone wins!