Actually, Nintendo has gotten much better about letting fan-games come out. They've begun to realize that it doesn't hurt their business. Before they were extremely protective of the Metroid and Zelda franchises, sending C&D letters to anyone who tried to make one; but that practice has gone the way of the DoDo. Just look at Metroid Prime 2D for example; they had an article published in EGM and Nintendo hasn't told them to stop.