Former Nintendo of America president, Reggie Fils-Aimé, has spoken on the Kinda Funny Games Gamescast about the Nintendo games which didn’t hit the mass market as he expected. Reggie singled out Metroid: Other M as the game which he thought would be a “defining” moment for the long-running series. He said he was left disappointed by sales of the game which didn’t resonate with players and didn’t sell as many copies as Nintendo was expecting. Reggie said that he explained why the game didn’t reach expectations on the business side of things in a meeting with both Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto. He gave them his opinion and said that that it simply took too long to get into Metroid: Other M in a meaningful way and it simply wasn’t structured well.
“I really thought that that was going to be a defining moment for the Metroid franchise. It was giving much more of a perspective about Samus. I really thought that was going to be a killer moment in the franchise’s history, and it wasn’t. It didn’t deliver – not the business results, it really didn’t touch the player the way we hoped it would.
Interestingly, I was in a large group meeting, a strategy meeting with (Satoru) Iwata and (Shigeru) Miyamoto and the game developers, and we talked about why not. I was always the brash American. I was the one who would say what I believed was truth to try and help the business move forward. The point I made to the developers was it took too long to get into the meat and potatoes of this game. The first five hours of the game, you kind of plotted around. There wasn’t a lot of payoff, there was a lot of dialog, and I’m sure I pissed people off in the room. But the learning here was the player wants to get into this much faster. Yes, there are elements we need to do from a tutorial standpoint to help them understand the game mechanics, but you need to move things along much quicker. And hopefully that advice had a little bit of an impact on the developers in the room.”
Thanks to Greatsong1 for sending in the news tip!
“and I’m sure I pissed people off in the room”
That gave me laughs XD
This should be used as a meme from now on.
Same here.😂
Lol imagine backing Other M but hating Disaster day of crisis, Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora’s box and the other Operation Rainfall game
It was called Pandora’s Tower; the other Rainfall game was The Last Story.
Well, he wasn’t wrong. Other M WAS a defining moment for the franchise. It was the moment that almost killed the franchise, that is.
Joke aside, I actually like Other M unironically. I know it has its flaws, but I think it’s a bummer we likely won’t be getting another game like it ever again. I think it still had some untapped potential, and with better writing, I’m sure it could have appealed to more people.
I agree.
There are a lot of subtle things that go lost on the player in this game, things that were intended to make you think and connect dots; but that sadly just fall flat due to unfortunate scenario writing.
If this game gets a reimagining one day, I think it could truly be one of the Metroid series’ greatest games.
It all depends on if people will one day be open to having a Samus that has nothing more to her than being “stoic and badass”. Those aren’t bad traits by any means, but it’s clear that Nintendo of Japan has always considered her to have more ‘heart’ than that; but unfortunately all of that vision was delivered to densely and, according to most people it seems, with ‘too much monologuing ‘.
Definitely needed better execution. Sakamoto gives me George Lucas vibes: great story ideas, bad executionist.
Hi commander, lol!
You know I never got a chance to play Other M but I did see the gameplay of it long ago. Prime Federation Force almost killed the franchise as well due to Samus not being plahyable, bad gameplay and terrible storyline.
Honestly, I don’t even think the problem with Federation Force was that it was bad necessarily (I never played it myself, so I wouldn’t even know).
I think the real issue was that it was the wrong game at the wrong time. When Federation Force was announced, we just came out of a six year Metroid draught, and the last Metroid before that was Other M, which most people disliked. Having to wait six years for any Metroid announcement at all only to get a spin-off containing nothing of what the Metroid series represents, I’m sure that felt like a slap in the face for many fans. It felt like Nintendo was completely indifferent to what Metroid fans wished for.
I’m confident that if Federation Force had been released, let’s say, on the Switch a year after Metroid Dread, it would have been decently popular.
That artstyle did not help. Imagine if after the duds of Alien 3 & Resurrection, the next Alien movie had chibi cartoons for the xenomorphs. shudders Ugh…
Hey Sickr, there’s a typo in that second sentence; “Reggie singled out singled out Metroid: Other M”
Dammit :( Thanks I’ve fixed it now, finally.
Other M was flawed, very flawed but it definitely does not deserve the amount of hate it got. People who played the game for 5mins to 30mins based their entire review on that amount of time plus claiming Samus saying “baby” every 5sec which is factually incorrect, she does say it a lot in the beginning, by mid game is a few times and by the end like maybe once or twice.
This is why it’s best to play these games in their original voice acted Japanese. English VA more often than not ruin the experience especially if it is something like an anime style game.
I liked other m for what it was. The story should have been less whiny tho, I think that’s the main issue people had with it. It didn’t feel like Samus was a bad ass and was just annoying. Her writing should have been done much better and people would have accepted it more. Also I didn’t like the grid based movement, it was too stiff. By the end I really just wanted to skip all the cutscenes, too cringey lol
People harp on about the terrible story, which is true. But the biggest issue I had with it was the gameplay just wasn’t fun! The controls were terrible. It didn’t feel like a Metroid title.
And I really hated having to flip my controller to go into first-person.
It is the only Metroid title I have ever traded in. And it, along with Federation Force, are the only Metroid games I proudly do not own.
Adam can go f himself. He definitely ruined Metroid other m for me. WHY WOULD SAMUS LISTEN TO HIM?!? He’s a misogynistic jerk, and she’s listening to him?!!! Just shoot a missle at him and be done!
It was the defining moment of the franchise. It was the moment that distilled that Nintendo doesn’t understand their own franchise, and the best they can do is to keep trying to remake super metroid.
While we in a Rggie mood, why not interview him as to why non Mario and Non Zelda franchises take nearly 2 decades to make a sequel.
And we know it’s a fact. Galaxy 2 and BOW2 were worked on immediately. So we know it can be done with that same motivation on other non Mario and non Zelda franchises too.
+Grundilda
Kirby Planet Robobot 28th April 2016 VS Kirby and the Forgotten Land 25th March 2022 – just under 6 Years
Animal Crossing New Leaf 8th November 2012 vs Animal Crossing New Horizons 20 March 2020 – Just over 7 years
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 1st December 2017 VS Xenoblade Chronicles 3 29th July – Over 4 Years (And I didn’t even count the definitive version of Xenoblade 1)
Metroid Samus Returns 15 September 2017 vs Metroid Dread 8 October 2021 – Just under 4 years
Splatoon 28 May 2015 vs Splatoon 2 21 July 2017 – Just over 2 years
No, Non-Mario and Non-Zelda games definitely do not take “nearly 2 decades” to make.
Other M was a really good Metroid game. The English voice acting and the over sensitive Samus were the problem. Has she been grittier with less speech; an amazing classic it would have been.
She was whining a little too much.
F=ma.
The problem wasn’t the voice acting, it’s that the tone doesn’t translate well in English as opposed to Japanese and that tone was melancholy which it made it seem the voice acting was terrible but it isn’t.
I hope they do another gameplay style like that again in future Metroid games with Team ninja.
I absolutely love Other M. Aside from the pixel hunt segments and some of the awkward first-person controls, it’s my favorite Metroid game. (I have not yet played Samus Returns or Dread). I absolutely love that the game brought narrative and character depth to the franchise. Plus, the in-game combat was the most bad-ass Samus has ever looked.
The sad thing about Metroid: Other M is that its the only 3D platformer to Metroid’s name.
Nowadays, Metroid is either 2D, FPS, or whatever Federation Force was.
What was annoying for me is that Other M’s gameplay was amazing. I loved it, yet the constant stop-start cinematic was a bit meh. I liked learning about Samus’ story, but it felt a bit choppy. Take all that out and you’ve got an incredible game. I hope they make more in other M’s gameplay style and fix the issues
Jesus im a bad gamer and i hade no problems with the game. for me i wanted more cut scences. the first metroid with story telling. the game was to easy. the controlls was a problem, not enough buttons.
when this game was to complicated … i dont wanna know what they think of metroid dread, this game is f**** difficult but awesome