Yes, they're risk adverse but in the last couple of years, Nintendo has also become much more legally expansive than they were. Of course, Nintendo has long been legally aggressive, especially in protecting their trademarks ("Super Mario" et al) but the expansiveness is both new and deeply problematic. It was fine when Nintendo was legally aggressive suing unlicensed Super Mario T-shirt makers but in the past couple of years they're going just as aggressively after retro fan and preservation communities and other non-profit, minor players who they previously mostly ignored.
This change was a conscious decision and makes little sense because these new targets have always tangentially infringed some IP rights but never in ways that had measurable financial impact on Nintendo's current core products. And, arguably, retro preservation and fan communities are net positive for Nintendo's brand. Even notoriously litigious companies like Disney choose to selectively turn a blind eye to cosplayers in Marvel super hero capes. Threatening or suing your hardest core, most loyal brand fans for doing things that didn't make them money or cost you money (at least rounded to the nearest $100) is not only a waste of resources, it's actively bad for your brand.
This has turned me from generally positive toward Nintendo to literally hating the brand. Sure, doing this is technically within their rights but it's just being shitty and there's no compelling reason they had to change from being selectively reasonable to "full-on asshole" toward their fans.
Nintendo isn't changing, the world around it is.
15 years ago there were no youtubers who built a business around pasting a talking head over a video game stream. It seems nobody even asks Nintendo if they are ok with that and now people are angry because the answer turned out to be 'no'. That's not how copyright works.
The emulator authors who made millions by accepting donations with the explicit promise of facilitating piracy of the latest Nintendo games still for sale also should have known better.
There's a lot of hate for Nintendo right now, but imo it's all on entitled gamers who want stuff that Nintendo created for free. There's no company that can safisfy those demands and stay in business.
This change was a conscious decision and makes little sense because these new targets have always tangentially infringed some IP rights but never in ways that had measurable financial impact on Nintendo's current core products. And, arguably, retro preservation and fan communities are net positive for Nintendo's brand. Even notoriously litigious companies like Disney choose to selectively turn a blind eye to cosplayers in Marvel super hero capes. Threatening or suing your hardest core, most loyal brand fans for doing things that didn't make them money or cost you money (at least rounded to the nearest $100) is not only a waste of resources, it's actively bad for your brand.
This has turned me from generally positive toward Nintendo to literally hating the brand. Sure, doing this is technically within their rights but it's just being shitty and there's no compelling reason they had to change from being selectively reasonable to "full-on asshole" toward their fans.