News and rumours have been swirling for a few year’s now regarding Metroid Prime Trilogy HD for the Nintendo Switch. Numerous insiders have said that the game is coming, but Nintendo still hasn’t announced its existence. VentureBeat journalist Jeff Grubb recently appeared on the Giant Bomb show and said that the remastered trilogy is finished, but Nintendo has yet to decide when to release it. It would make sense to release it before Metroid Prime 4, but we still don’t know when that is coming due to the rebooting it received from Bandai Namco back to Retro Studios. Here’s Jeff’s musings:
“The game is done and Nintendo is holding it. I think Metroid Prime trilogy is done and whether or not Nintendo releases it now or later depends on other factors. I think that game is sitting in their pocket for whenever Nintendo decides it’s the right time, and Nintendo’s done this a lot recently so it’s not unusual, it’s not a sign of some bad thing happening, it’s not a sign of a lack of faith in Metroid… Nintendo can afford [to sit on it] and that’s how they’re treating it.”
“I think a big problem for Nintendo for quite some time during the pandemic was QA… I think Nintendo was focusing its quality assurance resources on one or two big projects at a time and that meant that some games that were basically finished were sitting on the side, while they had their lockdown secure QA processes focused on one or two more important games. Japan is still dealing with these issues so I don’t think those processes are going to open up any time soon.”
“The other factor for Metroid Prime Trilogy is that it’s definitely going to be a marketing beat for Metroid Prime 4, almost certainly. So right now we’re getting Metroid Dread this year and then I would imagine that Metroid Prime trilogy is something they’ll release close to the release of Metroid Prime 4, whenever that is.”
Yeh, I agree. It’s def a switch release that’s gona be used to prime people for prime 4.
It’s just that same question of WHEN for prime 4.
Regardless of whether these Trilogy rumors are true or not, Nintendo would have to be embarassingly oblivious to have Prime 4 on the switch and leave the trilogy behind so yeah it’s just a matter of “when” instead of if. My guess is they’ll release it either near Dread’s release or closer to Prime 4’s release, so late 2021 or late 2022?
I mean… Skyward Sword HD is being released the year before BOTW2 releases.
Might be less about Prime 4 release date and more about spacing apart port releases? Hmm… Out of curiosity, I’m going to pull some dates from the eshop.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 4/28/2017
~5 months
Pokken Tournament Dx – 9/22/2017
~5 months
Bayonetta 2 – 2/16/2018
~3 months
Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze – 5/4/2018
Hyrule Warriors DE – 5/18/2018
~2 months
Captain Toad – 7/13/18
~3 months
The World Ends With You – 10/12/2018
~3 months
New Super Mario Bros U Dx – 1/11/2019
~12 months
TMS#FE – 1/17/2020
~4 months
Xenoblade Chronicles – 5/29/2020
~5 months
Pikmin 3 Deluxe – 10/30/2020
~3-4 months
Mario 3D World – 2/12/2021
~3 months
Miitopia – 5/21/2021
~2 months
Skyward Sword HD – 7/16/2021
Eh… I don’t if that information tells us anything really. I’ll leave it up if anyone is curious though.
But yeah… It could be worth pointing out Bayonetta 1+2 wasn’t saved for Bayo 3 and Pikmin 3 wasn’t saved for the alleged Pikmin 4.
They’ve been “working out the best time to release it” for the last 4 years, can we stop pretending this is anything more than blind guessing at this point?
Good work CFG. That is another way to think about it. Sure it sounds right to release this to ramp up to 4, but also it is 3 long games. They’d probably want people to be able to play all 3 and take a break before playing 4. By that logic I’d say it should come out a full year at least before 4. Maybe next spring, they wouldn’t want Prime Trilogy cutting into Dread sales, right?
Also the one thing I’m wondering is if it was recently completed. I’ve assumed it has been ready for a while and they just waiting for right time. If it was only completed recently well that would be some news and would affect my release date guessing.
For the Switch Pro, right?
Don’t believe rumours if you don’t want to be disappointed, people.
The Switch’s Joycon motion controls will never be as good as a Wiimote
Yea its actually better. Its gyro error corrects more easily and better senses angles and motion. The only thing the Wiimote Plus has better is tht it uses a lil laser sensor in the front to determine where u are aiming at.
Regardless of when it comes out, it needs version switching support, allowing players to experience the different versions of each game whenever it received a patch or re-release. The 1.0.0 version of Prime 1 is getting pretty pricey nowadays due to containing content and movement techs that were patched out in future versions. Paired with changes in localization and control, there were a decent amount of differences between the versions of each game. A lot of players who will be getting this are doing it for the nostalgia factor, and given how many versions there were of each game, it’ll be more impactful if we can play the version we played previously.