Not every Nintendo studio makes good games, NST is one of them. That's all that can be said about it. Who's to blame? Both the managment and developers. How come Retro Studios is able to make good game after good game?

Maybe NST has a difficulty understanding design goals because Hunters is the worst selling Metroid game and it was on Nintendo's biggest userbase. Just because it has a multiplayer doesn't mean the singleplayer has to suck. Metroid Prime: Federation Force looks equally shitty to me.

And what about the games of Sony of Japan? Not so pretty huh.

Nintendo focuses on Japanese studios, Sony on Western.

Nintendo is to blame. Defenetely. I'm glad you mentioned Retro. Obviously Nintendo assigned a good team to manage Retro. And it wasn't without its share of problems. Many Retro games were canceled, like Ravenblade, and a lot of people were laid off as well but Nintendo wanted Metroid Prime to succeed. They never showed this dedication to NST. NST failure is Nintendo failure as a game company. They never really wanted NST to be successful. Nintendo was lazy and incompetent. Nintendo is to blame.

This is an amazing thread. We're seeing all the deny, deflect, and discredit reactions up close and personal. The best so far have been from people who didn't even watch the video, which always makes things fun. It's been a joy to witness.

Still, it's a shame that people try to bury the point beneath defensive rhetoric. There is a lot to learn from this and a lot that could be gained from honest discussion. I truly hope that NoA gained some insights from the results of their inquiry and that those results were passed along and given due consideration by upper Nintendo management. After all, they lost millions of dollars over this.

You have no credibility whatsoever when you say MS shut down Mistwalker and Artoon.

-Mistwalker is still active

-Artoon belonged to a Japanese publisher that filed for bankruptcy

Defend Nintendo but don't add bullshit in the middle.

If this was moved to the Wii U, I would get it. Reminds me of Darksiders and Bayonetta mixed together. (Gameplay wise).

Nintendo is to blame?

You said it right there, nintendo managed to turn around Retro Studios, which was in shambles before Nintendo of Japan basically came in and cleaned house.

Nintendo treated Next Level Games so well that they stated they "We have worked with a lot of other companies before, and we're super happy with our relationship with Nintendo. There's no reason to look anywhere else. They keep giving us better and better IP to work with, and as long as we do our job and make good games for them there's no reason for us to venture out."

Rare was one of the hottest game devs under Nintendo, then they went to Microsoft and turned to shit?

If Nintendo can make three western devs under its belt produce excellent games and NST can't? Maybe NST were just not good enough?

What's there to learn? This is basically layed off NST devs giving their side of the story. People with a vested interest in showing Nintendo in a bad light. There is no proof of any of these allegations. As I said above, Next Level Games is ecstatic to be working with Nintendo, Retro Studios was turned around by Nintendo...etc etc. Until we get Nintendo's side of the story, these are jsut accusations. Nothing else.

Of course they're to blame. Nintendo even sent Miyamoto to Retro studios and other japanese designers to supervise Retro work. Laid off a lot of staff and hired new people. Nintendo really wanted that game to work. If Nintendo were not able to reproduce that level of management with NST, Nintendo is to blame. 

Wow, that's ... quite a take on the situation.  You're saying that the management of NST had nothing to do with the game until late in development?  That they had nothing to do with the planning and direction of the project?  That they didn't become involved until they had to "save" the game?  Because that doesn't make much sense and I don't remember it as what the video was saying.  Do you have an alternate source for that?

From what I understood from the narrative, the game was bad in the first place because management and development were not on the same page at all.  Developers knew it wasn't very good but no little or no input on the direction the game was taking.  I simply don't understand why you'd want to put all the blame on the developers.

You really don't have to bend over backwards to protect some middle-management types.  Admitting that the development situation at NST was toxic does not make Nintendo as a whole look bad.  It's pretty clear that when you have mass resignations that you're dealing with a less than perfect working environment.  ANY business will try to understand the problems and what went wrong so that it does not happen again.  That's business 101.

Layoffs?  What are you talking about?