Maybe it's not worth it to them due to opportunity costs. The limited staff they have could instead be made to work on more popular and/or less financially demanding projects that bring in a higher projected profit than a Metroid project would.
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Should Metroid cater to small target group like the Souls series?
- Thread starter nkarafo
- Start date
Maybe it's not worth it to them due to opportunity costs. The limited staff they have could instead be made to work on more popular and/or less financially demanding projects that bring in a higher projected profit than a Metroid project would.
nkarafo
Member
I'm using the Souls games as an example of a series that has a reasonable budget (not too big, not too low), makes no compromises in its design in order to cater to the biggest chunk of the videogames audience and stays profitable because it sells very good, but not GTA/CoD good.
And i feel like the only way for Metroid to be able to recover is if Nintendo follows that model, for this particular franchise. Same with F-Zero maybe.
I believe someone from Team Ninja said something like "Metroid Other M's story was product of Sakamoto, we worked with him on the Metroid, but the story was all his."
Interprete that as you want. Either he was only in charged of the story and little of gameplay, or just story. Or whatever!
Is he responsible for the Metroid Other M disaster? Yes, he is. At the end he was the director. But Team Ninja also took part of it.
TheDinoman
Member
Retro = Nintendo, though.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that FROM actually put their games on platforms with a userbase.
User base really hasn't been an issue for Metroid games in the past, as they've been on some rather popular systems. The problem is that the series doesn't hold a lot of a mainstream appeal, despite some rather pointed efforts on the part of Nintendo with key installments like Super, Prime 1 and Other M. Even with how rightfully anointed Super has been since release, it did not sell all that well initially and hasn't even broken 2 million WW since its release.
" SOULS SERIES IS NICHE "
nkarafo
Member
I believe they had such an audience during Prime 1 but didn't care for it. And that they tried to reach an even bigger audience with shit like OtherM, especially with Sakamoto saying that he made it more acceptable for a new audience. Probably they wanted to cater to the huge Wii userbase. That's how i feel.
For a "AAA" game, it is IMO. I mean, Square sold 2 or 3 times as many Tomb Raider Reboot copies and said it was a failure. So the potential audience must be pretty bigger than the "measly" 2 or 3 million copies Souls games sell.
They don't get it. They need to lead with bold design decisions. *Create* an audience. That's Nintendo from the 80's and 90's, and what Fromsoft is now. Most developers are followers, which isn't necessarily a knock against them, but FS are leaders.
Other M just infuriates me and I could go on -- Really, and the reason isn't because they took a shot at making a good Metroid game and missed. It's because they seem to either completely ignore or completely misunderstand all of the fundamental elements from Super that resonated with people and created this fanbase that lives on 20 years later. If you had asked me to make a comedy Metroid game design that would be purpose built to annoy and offend fans of the original games, it might resemble Other M.
As far as Nintendo is concerned, Metroid is a game about a sexy blonde girl who sometimes wears a suit and shoots things. That's really how Nintendo regards the franchise today.
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
Maybe they should do something totally crazy, like make a traditional Metroid game. You know, one that actually pays homage to what made the series so influential instead of cramming it full of awkwardly shoehorned flavor of the moment design conventions.
More likely we'll get Metroid Pachinko, a new app for your mobile device. The fans, they'll love it! See you again in a decade Metroid fans!
More likely we'll get Metroid Pachinko, a new app for your mobile device. The fans, they'll love it! See you again in a decade Metroid fans!
krizalidzero
Member
Nintendo needs to take promoting their games seriously.
It's funny how they over promote famous games such as Mario and let less known games as Metroid almost go unnoticed.
It's funny how they over promote famous games such as Mario and let less known games as Metroid almost go unnoticed.
Prime 1 did sell well, but a rather significant chunk of its sales were the result of the Player's Choice release, as well as bundles. It was sold as a kind of answer to Halo, but I've always felt that Nintendo got a lot of silent blowback when people found out that it wasn't at all like Halo beyond the view point and that it had aliens. I don't think they ever intended to chase off the Goldeneye/Perfect Dark crowd, but I feel like a lot of Nintendo faithful were hoping for something much more along those lines, which in turn caused the beginning of the migration of the shooter audience to Xbox platforms, to which they've had little reason to look back.
Mr Fahrenheit
Member
The Souls games aren't niche, OP. I know everyone likes to think that playing those games makes them a part of some exclusive hardcore gamer club, but Dark Souls blew way out into the mainstream very shortly after it's release. Demon's Souls was a niche game until Dark came out, but it hasn't been that since then.
The issue at hand is that Metroid has never been one of those series. Nintendo has released single games that have outsold the entirety of the Metroid series several times over.
Depends how you define niche. They don't do COD numbers.
The respectable thing about the games is that with them Fromsoft led and created something completely new that didn't exist before and created its own audience. It didn't chase some audience that it had already identified. It created one. I know I keep saying this, but, dammit, it needs said. This is what Nintendo used to do and no longer does.
nkarafo
Member
Metroid fans liked Prime. It was probably the new players who played it that thought it was a Halo game. Like i said in the OP, a big chunk of the Prime 1 sales must have come from the amazing reviews and word of mouth. Everyone was saying how amazing Metroid Prime is and how it "beats" Halo, so some newcomers probably thought it was indeed a Halo clone.
TangoAlphaLima
Member
Nintendo home console owners are already a small target group...
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
There's a user base for Nintendo published games on Nintendo systems.
Mr Fahrenheit
Member
I know, that's great and I love the games, but they aren't niche.
They did pretty good, once.
This would be my favorite metroid game if not for the needless artifact scanning quest torwards the end of the game
nkarafo
Member
You speak the truth and it's trully depressing man
If 3-4 million sales is niche, the word has lost all meaning. Yes in comparison to CoD its less popular. CoD is also one of the most successful franchises of all time. I bet the number of games that have sold more than a Souls game is much, much less than the number that have sold less.
nkarafo
Member
Ok, i apologize then. Maybe "niche" is not the right word. Maybe my English are not perfect but this is the word i use to describe something that is not mainstream.
krizalidzero
Member
I must state that I never understood the Other M hate.
Love that game!
Love that game!
nkarafo
Member
People have analyzed over and over the reasons. I don't understand why you don't understand. I mean you can disagree but how can you not understand?
krizalidzero
Member
What? Are you crazy? Back in the day 500.000 units was huge success! (Even today for smaller companies)
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Metroid was never a big series for them, and it certainly wasn't big in Japan. I think bringing Team Ninja on board with Other M was an attempt to increase the ip's appeal there.
As I recall Other M did well for a Metroid game in Japan. Taking a "Souls" style approach to Metroid would appease western audiences, but fail in Japan, which is what I believe Nintendo doesn't want.
As I recall Other M did well for a Metroid game in Japan. Taking a "Souls" style approach to Metroid would appease western audiences, but fail in Japan, which is what I believe Nintendo doesn't want.
Prime 2 shed a lot of its predecessor's sales, and while some it can be blamed on releasing at an extraordinarily packed time for gaming (woe be to any game released in the shuffle of the likes of GTA:SA, Halo 2, Half-Life 2 and MGS3), it's not like the Gamecube really had anything else at the time to steal the spotlight away.
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
The original version (pre-Player's Choice) had exploits that made the majority of those accessible without all the extra back tracking (the caveat was that they required some skill). Thank God they went out of their way to remove all the most useful sequence breaking techniques that actually made the game gratifying to replay. For a minute I was worried Nintendo/Retro actually understood what makes a great replayable Metroid experience, but to my relief they eventually nerfed it good.
Metroid Prime sold the most because it got in part of the sci fi shooter crowd. They then discovered the game was not what they wanted, and then the other two games sold like every other Metroid title.
There is (or there were) like one million Metroid fans around the world and each title have sold consistently that number.
There is (or there were) like one million Metroid fans around the world and each title have sold consistently that number.
How many Nintendo titles have sales toppling the entire sales of the Souls metaseries?
Sure... millions of sales are a lot. I mean look at all those numbers! Doesn't change the fact that it's still niche compared to sales/ awareness juggernauts like that of Nintendo's brands where single titles have and may very well continue to outsell the entire souls series combined.
Jawmuncher
Member
A million + sales per title isn't exactly small. But that seems to already be discussed. Nintendo just needs to do another 2D metroid and go from there.
No joke when I saw the metroid prime trailers before the two towers (it was one of the LOTR films) I thought it was Nintendos Halo lol.
No joke when I saw the metroid prime trailers before the two towers (it was one of the LOTR films) I thought it was Nintendos Halo lol.
krizalidzero
Member
This is actually true. All Metroid titles sell about a Million, which is actually good, but of course Ninty wants 4+ other Ms lol
NeonZ
Member
That's why they won't focus on Metroid.
It barely beat Prime 3 there, but that's only because the Prime series in general did badly over there (sub 80k numbers) those are all still pretty bad sales and Other M didn't change that. Even Fusion only managed sub 200k though. For whatever reason, none of the post-Super Metroid games ever approached it again in Japan.
It's still crazy to me that the original game is still the best selling game in the series in Japan by a massive margin. Japan really doesn't like Metroid at all.
But it wasn't popular before the Playstation was considered as an add-on to the SNES!
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
Some have argued that Echoes was too hard, I personally think it was just needlessly convoluted and badly paced. The game has so much going for it conceptually, but it's like they designed it to minimize the player's enjoyment of all those sweet touches by constantly hampering it with frustratingly obtuse design choices.
Paths that seal hermetically behind you without warning, the superfluous addition of keys (uh, I though items and abilities were the keys to progress in Metroid...), a heavily segmented dark world full of dead end cul-de-sacs, plodding progression between light posts while you wait for your energy to refill, bottomless chasms where you respawn instead of a cohesive interconnected world, redundant back tracking to return energy to the energy controllers, a hopeless quagmire of a fetch quest that makes the most reviled part of the original Prime look breezy by comparison, and arguably the weakest item progression in the franchise.
Is it any wonder the game lacked mass appeal?
Souls games haven't had a AAA budget.
Metroid wasn't popular in japan before the playstation came out. The original famicom game was more popular on nes.
Sadly . Nintendo is also insanely hypocritical as well with their games. Some games they will say they need to figure out how to make the IP "fresh" before putting out a new game. Others they will just simply iterate while adding some new elements. When it comes to Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Zelda, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and Mario platformers they don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just improve on what they have and add new things. That's why those series grew in popularity. That's why they're Nintendo's most successful franchises.
The series where they don't do that or refuse to do that when asked why it takes so long for new entries falter and end up on a downward sprial and get push back from the very fans they're suppose to be catering to. You'd think they'd notice the pattern after 20 years.
Halo and Metroid Prime started out roughly the same time. Nintendo purposefully held back and I believe cut the legs off Metroid for whatever reason while Microsoft allowed Halo to flourish. Metroid should be as big as Halo or damn near close but it's not and that's of Nintendo's own doing. As far as the Souls games go Nintendo won't ever allow Metroid to be niche or just focus the series on one group. Look at Federation Force as an example. They've had the chance already and didn't take it. If they focused the IP on the west where it's most popular they could change things around in time. However they wont' do that. Japan always has to come first in design decisions no matter what, even if a series isn't popular their they want to make it popular regardless of how it impacts the larger western fanbase (Metroid Other M).
StoppedInTracks
Member
That's me. Never played a Metroid title before, bought a GCN for Metroid Prime alone as it was getting 10/10 reviews.
After trying a Metroid game for the first time (Metroid Prime) I fell in love with the franchise and played and finished all of the previous Metroid titles.
You described a lot of stuff that would have impacted its legs. What I was getting at is what caused them to lose over half of Prime 1's sales right off the bat, and the answer is there was a significant amount of people who had their fill of the series after buying the first title and would not be coming back for more.
It was never huge but the sales of Metroid 1-3 were comparable for both regions. It wasn't like with the Primes or the GBA Metroid games where Japanese sales were lucky to be 1/10th of the Western sales.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
I don't think Metroid is necessarily a franchise that's limited to a small niche audience. I think it's a franchise that just doesn't sell great to Nintendo's current niche that's buying consoles for Mario, Mario Kart, Smash and other cartoonish, family friendly games.
A lot of Nintendo fans on here and elsewhere actively talk about how they love those games and have no interest in all the shooters in other platforms. And the bulk of shooter fans have little interest in Nintendo hardware.
If Nintendo is going to have big success with a big budget Metroid Prime 4 they simply have to find a way to get more of the core gamer market outside of their existing fan add to buy the NX. Which is a tall task.
A lot of Nintendo fans on here and elsewhere actively talk about how they love those games and have no interest in all the shooters in other platforms. And the bulk of shooter fans have little interest in Nintendo hardware.
If Nintendo is going to have big success with a big budget Metroid Prime 4 they simply have to find a way to get more of the core gamer market outside of their existing fan add to buy the NX. Which is a tall task.
The reason Dark Souls works is due to it being multiplatform in nature; it targets a very specific group but that group is across multiple consoles, so that can lead to the series having successful sales and thus the investment in the series being worthwhile due to it being on mostly everything 
.
The issue with Metroid in this case is that it would be Nintendo exclusive and because of that it will only land on a few devices (Wii U, NX, 3DS). And out of all of them, the 3DS is the most successful.
Logically, you make a Metroid game on that, but most hard-core Metroid fans would want a grand AAA adventure to make up for Other M (and I would like that at some point honestly).
But Nintendo isn't made of money and they are likely saving the next console Metroid for their future home console. So what does that leave the 3DS with? A few things; they could make a 2D Metroid like past handheld installments, a FPS in the style of Hunters, a 2.5D title like Next Level was originally pitching or something completely different.
Nintendo chose the 'completely different' option and....people are mixed, to put it lightly, toward that move.
I guess Nintendo could make Metroid a niche franchise, but I don't expect them to; they want it to be a big seller like Zelda and Mario. But if they want to be true to the series, its likely it will never be that big seller, but they refuse to accept it.
It will be interesting to see where the franchise goes once the NX is announced honestly.
. The issue with Metroid in this case is that it would be Nintendo exclusive and because of that it will only land on a few devices (Wii U, NX, 3DS). And out of all of them, the 3DS is the most successful.
Logically, you make a Metroid game on that, but most hard-core Metroid fans would want a grand AAA adventure to make up for Other M (and I would like that at some point honestly
). But Nintendo isn't made of money and they are likely saving the next console Metroid for their future home console. So what does that leave the 3DS with? A few things; they could make a 2D Metroid like past handheld installments, a FPS in the style of Hunters, a 2.5D title like Next Level was originally pitching or something completely different.
Nintendo chose the 'completely different' option and....people are mixed, to put it lightly, toward that move.
I guess Nintendo could make Metroid a niche franchise, but I don't expect them to; they want it to be a big seller like Zelda and Mario. But if they want to be true to the series, its likely it will never be that big seller, but they refuse to accept it.
It will be interesting to see where the franchise goes once the NX is announced honestly.
I'm just saying that the Playstation didn't steal the crowd since there really wasn't one to begin with. It's not like Metroidvanias in general did well in Japan, either.