Tenshi Ventures’ Ian Baverstock has said that Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata is out of touch with what consumers want and that the company has ceded too much control to the desires of retailers.

Speaking at the Develop conference in Brighton, England, Baverstock took belated exception of Iwata’s GDC keynote. According to Baverstock, the CEO claimed that smaller, less expensive games killing off craftsmanship in game development.

Baverstock disagreed, claiming that the proliferation of gaming on mobile and social platforms expanded the developmental skill-set required to make games. Baverstock believes that Iwata’s concern stems from the declining influence of retailers on the development process – something he says Nintendo has built its business model around – and shifted the emphasis away from the core market that they cater to.

"I just don't agree," he said yesterday. "This lack of craftsmanship is really a reflection of Nintendo's point of view – they are completely obsessed with retail, and have been very successful in that."

Baverstock suggested that retailers attending E3 don’t make purchasing decisions based on quality, but on “who has the biggest sign.”

“Ultimately for Mr Iwata to be able to sit there and say that we're losing craftsmanship, we're losing skills... at the same time that Minecraft comes out, sells millions and makes one man lots of money and creates a huge public buzz, is a shocking indictment of his view of the world that we all see.”

Baverstock went on to prophesy a “second great age of development” – the first being in the late ‘80s.

“We're not very far away now from the beginnings of next generation [of technology] from Sony and Microsoft. I don't know when that will come, but at that point... the idea that there are going to be many independent developers with either their own money, or even publishers money, making games on those platforms – there are going to be very, very few.”

He concluded, “In the end, once you get past that preachy title of why developers need to change, the reason why I'm so riled by Mr. Iwata's point of view is that fundamentally it's smack talk: 'You, Mr. Developer, stay in your box, you stay down there, we'll do with this other stuff, you just carry on making games.'”