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Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata: Report on Live-Action Zelda Series is Incorrect

My best guess: There actually WAS some effort to make a live-action Zelda series, but it was done without permission from Nintendo; there was a violation of a non-disclosure agreement; or they contacted Nintendo, Nintendo gave them some documentation, and it was misinterpreted as permission to go ahead.

Or maybe they both had better things to do than comment on an obviously bogus rumor and thought people would be smart enough to realize it was bogus. Turns out people needed it to be said that there is not going to be a Netflix series because it's too much to ask for them to figure it out on their own.

I don't know, I think companies make proof of concept productions all the time. A few year back concept art for different Nintendo franchise based comics that Archie Comics was pitching to Nintendo came out.

As for why Iwata has taken so long to make a comment about this, well, it takes time for information to trickle on up, and this was concerning foreign streaming television, which is far outside of Nintendo's focus. Odds are Iwata didn't know about this until recently and likely needed some time to figure out exactly what to say. It's Nintendo's style to be very careful and calculated in everything it does.

Yeah, pitches happen all the time without input in order to convince companies to let their IPs be adapted. Nintendo at this point is pretty much impenetrable when it comes to that as they've seen before that most companies wanting to get ahold of their IPs can't be trusted.

What incidents have there been that led Nintendo to not trust licensors? If it's regarding adaptations, companies like SEGA and Midway would let people adapt their IPs all the time in the 90's and never cared. Heck, Capcom let REALLY weird stuff like Novas Aventuras de Megaman happen (such as Roll being naked for most of the series), and the only real input given was to remove an editor who used the comic for jingoistic soapboxing.

Yeah, Novas Aventuras de Megaman was basically taking a bunch of 90's DeviantArt type illustrators, fanfiction writers, and a publisher and Capcom giving them all carte blanche.

I recall in one of the Nintendo Directs columns sometime in the first half of 2014 that Satoru Iwata plans to open up licensing deals, though I don't know which one it is and I can't just search through all of them because they're so long. I just remember it stood out to me as Nintendo is notoriously shut tight when it comes to licensing deals and has been since the NES days.

What incidents have there been that led Nintendo to not trust licensors?

Of course, I also think that there isn't as much interest in adapting Nintendo-themed properties in the west nowadays compared to in the 90's or even the 00's, as the video game landscape has changed a lot. Japanese games have fallen hugely out of favor--though Nintendo is one of the holdouts, and a major one at that, Nintendo doesn't have quite the street cred that Activision or Ubisoft have today. Something like Mario or Pokémon are seen as "babyish" (the kids object to the word "kiddy," because they don't want to be associated with family-friendly stuff), and the likes of Zelda would be less hot a property than Elder Scrolls or Fable, and same with Metroid compared to Halo or Call of Duty.

Yeah let's not forget Nintendo has snubbed 3rd party titles (I think around 80% or 90% of them), that's why I haven't seen a GTA 5 for Wii U, and the same goes for Destiny. Even the recent Call of Duty and Battlefield games don't have Wii U releases at all.

Of course, I also think that there isn't as much interest in adapting Nintendo-themed properties in the west nowadays compared to in the 90's or even the 00's, as the video game landscape has changed a lot. Japanese games have fallen hugely out of favor--though Nintendo is one of the holdouts, and a major one at that, Nintendo doesn't have quite the street cred that Activision or Ubisoft have today.

Something like Mario or Pokémon are seen as "babyish" (the kids object to the word "kiddy," because they don't want to be associated with family-friendly stuff), and the likes of Zelda would be less hot a property than Elder Scrolls or Fable, and same with Metroid compared to Halo or Call of Duty.

Yeah let's not forget Nintendo has snubbed 3rd party titles (I think around 80% or 90% of them), that's why I haven't seen a GTA 5 for Wii U, and the same goes for Destiny. Even the recent Call of Duty and Battlefield games don't have Wii U releases at all.

Call of Duty is on the Wii U but it sold terrible. Nobody who plays on the Wii U wants to play those kinds of AAA action games like Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed.