[quote name='hpv']Nintendo did used to put a limit on how many games a publisher could put out per year. I think this was more about not having the market saturated than directly controlling quality.[/quote]
The most important aspect was control of the market. However, quality control was a goal as well.
From Game Over:
In Japan...the overall Nintendo business was hurt by a glut of games, many of them of inferior quality. Arakawa wanted a licensing agreement that would prevent this from happening in America. The built-in lockout chip, Yamauchi admitted, was to censor games as well as to stop counterfeiters. "It was our way of assuring consistent product quality and to keep the taste level high -- no dirty games, no games with bugs or bad design."
and
For the "privilege" of being allowed to make games for Nintendo's machine, developers had to grant Nintendo the approval of the games, packaging, artwork, and commercials...The plan had Nintendo evaluating every game and giving a rating on the forty-point scale.
The forty-point scale was used to decide which games in Japan ought to be localized; games that scored poorly didn't move forward. So it was more than lip-service, though as we can see from today's game reviews, quality is sometimes subjective.
That said, Nintendo seems to be letting just about anything through these days. Even if it didn't mean much, they ought to have some standard of quality. Flooding the market with crap is not good for the long term.
k 
