Topic: Metroid Prime Federation Force (and Blast Ball)

@bitleman: All new Metroid games have been consistent million sellers. All games sold somewhere between 1 and 2 million copies, barring Metroid and Metroid Prime, as they sold a little over 2 million. Calling Other M a commercial failure is calling the entire Metroid franchise a commercial failure. It hasn't sold Mario or Zelda numbers, but with consistent 1+ million sales, I don't think 'failure' is the right word.

I do not know for certain why Nintendo opted to not create a new Metroid Prime game on the Wi U. I suspect that Retro Studios was not interested in doing it and Nintendo was not interested in making a new entry without the involvement of Retro. Nintendo tried taking the franchise in another direction and it flopped (Metroid Other M). So now the franchise is in limbo. If Federation Force also flops then it may be that Metroid goes the way of F-Zero and sits dormant for a long time.

Of course, Retro Studios may go to Nintendo and ask to make a new Prime game. That could always happen. However, fans cannot force it to happen. I seriously doubt that Nintendo decided to make Federation Force instead of a proper Prime game. Rather, I think there was no chance of a Prime game on Wii U.

@RatKing64: It's the other way around. Usually Nintendo decides what Retro Studios will be making. The problem is that the majority of the staff that worked on the Prime series has left Retro Studios; Most of the new team doesn't have any experience with Metroid. They're not the same team from 15 years ago. That's the problem. Nintendo doesn't have a dedicated Metroid studio anymore.

@MrMario02: That is true, but I do wonder if at the time the lack of another Mario platformer in any form was considered a massive disappointment. It's like Nintendo revolutionized gaming again and then...nothing. Of course, I guess to be fair they did have Rare and the Banjo games so I suppose that would've been a sufficient distraction (and it isn't like that generation was lacking in 3D platformers).

So basically if Nintendo had published some Metroidvania games, people would be more fine with this maybe?

Definitely, yes.

That doesn't necessarily mean that we can't get Metroid games from Nintendo. You're forgetting that Tanabe-San is the one behind the prime series and he knows how the series has to move forward in that sense.

And even if the prime series were to be absent, Nintendo can easily make a 3D Metroid game using their experience from prime or even 2D for that matter.

Meanwhile Nintendo can use Intelligent Systems to make another Metroid game inorder to expand their creativity which makes me wonder why Nintendo just can't make more use of them? Because Intelligent Systems as of now barely have any IP besides Fire Emblem. If Fire Emblem were to be gone, Intelligent Systems would literally be nothing.

@Socar: If intelligent systems could make a Metroid game with a amazing story and an actual characterization for Samus, I would be all in for that. Especially after playing Awakening and Fates, I think they would do a great job.

The Trailers from this game, isn't helping (for me IMO). i really want to like this game. but i think i well get it, just to figure if it a Game for me OR not.

Not sure why you're replying to me, as I never said that we can't get another Metroid game. They don't have a dedicated team for Metroid; Tanabe expressed his interest in Prime 4 last year, but said that he couldn't gather the team to develop it, therefore he opted for a game smaller in scale; Federation Force in this case. That's what happens when games don't have dedicated dev teams; the directors have to scramble a team together and often find themselves with a smaller team than is needed for the development of said game.

But that was when EAD and SPD weren't merged together to form EPD and PTD which would mean that from next gen onwards, Nintendo wouldn't need second or third parties because the staff they have is huger than before. Its rather just to get a strong bond between them.

@Socar: No, the amount of staff is still the same. The term ''second party'' doesn't exist. And no again, they still need third parties, just as much as before.

They need third parties for more software releases, but they don't need them to make the games that they couldn't make internally on their own now that their divisions are merged. Why do you think the merging exists? So that companies can get more assets and resources come easier instead of just relying it from various distances.

Rubbish, Ninty still needs third parties as Nintendo wont ever make FIFA, Lego, Skylanders, Madden etc games regardless of their internal set up and without which it's a major turn off as a family friendly console let alone not having hardcore gamer favourites like COD, GTA etc.

@Socar: I don't see Intelligent System working on Metroid. They see themselves as the official RPG/adventure maker of Nintendo. They have no experience in action game and are probably happy with that role. I think that's why they sabotaged the FExSMT project. They were afraid Atlus could become a strong RPG partner for Nintendo (and a potential competitor for Intelligent System) after the several success they did on 3DS.

Like I said, they need third parties for those kind of games for their hardware. But they don't need them to make games that Nintendo would want to make on their own Nintendo now doesn't need a third party dev to make another Star Fox game or Metroid because of the merge. Earlier, when a division wanted to make a game, the resources that they had were average and were not that huge unlike now.

So inorder to make games like Star Fox and Smash, they had to use third parties to get the job done. But that seems no longer the case with the recent merge.

@bitleman: What about Pushmo? What about Super Metroid? What about Wario Ware? While they only have Fire Emblem as their main profit, they certainly are capable to develop more than just RPG. Infact they have more experience in other genres than what Atlus will ever have.

The merge happened to make communication easier between the branches. Home console and handheld development, and software and hardware development.

My point exactly.

@Socar: No, you claimed that they don't need third parties anymore, that isn't true. They didn't gain more developers by merging their divisions. The development process might've been made a little easier for some games, but it's not as if they're suddenly able to churn out twice as many games.

I'll repeat again. They will need third parties for third party software for their consoles and handheld and that's a fact.

But they don't need them to make games that Nintendo themselves couldn't make earlier now that this merge has happened. Yes in some areas like cinematics they will need third party sources but other than that, they won't be needing them.

Nintendo EPD can now easily make Metroid since its a merge of EAD and SPD and SPD was the division responsible for the 2D Metroid games (well technically its the R&D1 but it was later merged to SPD which still has the same staff.)

Which means getting the staff from Zelda & Mario games to make Metroid doesn't sound like a bad idea since Metroid is based on these two IP's alone.

The merge isn't going to help create new teams. Bringing both groups together doesn't make it much easier to create new games when they still require a finite amount of work from a finite amount of developers, so SPD isn't going to suddenly be doing its own games now, they're going to be assisting second and third parties like usual. They can't create new development teams unless they hire more developers.