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With the recent release of Metroid Prime Trilogy, it was easy to presume that the Prime series of Metroid games had received a final nail hammered into its coffin. According to a recent interview with Kotaku though, it appears the series' producer isn't quite done. In response to a question regarding multiplayer in the series, Kensuke Tanabe said:

"As all I take part in is the Prime series, I am not capable of commenting on the whole Metroid series. But we will keep considering multiplayer for the Prime series. For instance, I think I can come up with some unique ideas using the Morph Ball, which is a specific skill of Samus'."

Though the series got a spinoff for the DS in Metroid Prime Hunters, and it's possible Tanabe is speaking about future Prime titles for Nintendo's handheld system, hearing about more Prime games in any capacity is intriguing news. While Team Ninja is busy working on Metroid: Other M, it's possible that Prime series dev Retro Studios could be working on the future of its brand of Metroid. Don''t just take it from us, take it from Retro Studios prez and CEO Michael Kelbaugh who said so himself!

Nintendo's Yoshio Sakamoto, who's been involved with every 2D Metroid game since co-creating the original, tells Game Life that the latest in the series -- Metroid Other M -- will (in addition to looking awesome) help flesh out the character of Samus Aran. Bridging the gap between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion in series canon, the game's plot goal is to depict the legendary bounty hunter as "an appealing human character," according to Sakamoto, and the joint Nintendo / Team Ninja production team will be "explaining a little bit about what happened in her past as well as the characters that influenced her."

The Metroid Prime games haven't been devoid of story, but we get the sense from Sakamoto's comments -- "The story will play a big part," he said -- that Other M will offer something meatier, perhaps through more cinematics ... and no scanning. In fact, we hear that any planned instances of scanning in Other M have been replaced with badass.

[Via 1UP]

Nintendo E3 2009 checklist:

• Mario? *check*
• Zelda? *check*
• Metroid? *check*

Are we missing something? Head past the break to find out!

With all the rapid-fire 3D action, Metroid: Other M may not look anything like any Metroid we've seen before, but according to Reggie Fils-Aime, it's a return to a more familiar Metroid style. "A year ago, someone could have asked me, what's going on with Metroid?" Fils-Aime told GameSpot. "When are we going to go back to the more traditional Metroid series versus the path that we went down with Prime? Here's the answer: Other M." The more traditional series -- with a "harder edge," according to Fils-Aime.

Reggie would like Other M to sell a bit more than the traditional Metroid game, however. "Metroid, for us, is a key franchise. And, in our view, really, since the SNES Metroid, we haven't broken through in terms of 1.5, two million units, and that's our bar," he said. He also told GameSpot that he's beginning to hear feedback from other companies, hoping to work with Nintendo in the same way Team Ninja is on Other M.

Gallery: Metroid: Other M (Wii)

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[Via The Escapist]

Being away from Tecmo seems to have done wonders for Tomonobu Itagaki's attitude. In an E3 interview with 1UP's James Mielke, the former Team Ninja head said he was "very honored and pleased to be of service" in response to the suggestion that Ninja Blade was a close imitation of Ninja Gaiden. He admitted he was "pretty tired" of making games featuring super-unrealistic women. He even went so far as to praise Tekken 6 director Katsuhiro Harada, only hating on Tekken when pressed.

And rather than harbor hard feelings against his former Team Ninja colleagues who stayed on with Tecmo, Itagaki offered well wishes to the team and its Metroid: Other M project. He called Yoshio Sakamoto, Nintendo's producer on the game, "a veteran I really respect," and suggested that Team Ninja's Yosuke Hayashi "will learn a lot working with him. I hope Team Ninja works hard in making a good game." We like Nice Itagaki!

The only ire was reserved for Bayonetta. "If I made a similar game as a game I made in the company I quit," he said about Platinum's Hideki Kamiya, "people would say, 'What an idiot, can't he make anything else?' Well, that is more or less the opinion I have for, uh, that Bayo-something game."

Wanna see Team Ninja's take on the Metroid franchise in action? Yeah, we thought that would get your attention. We've got the video we captured straight from the show floor, so now you can feel the mind-melting thrill that we got just a few minutes ago.

Sorry about the shaky-cam nonsense, as Nintendo hasn't started spreading the clip around yet. We'll update as soon as we can.

[Update: official trailer!]

Nintendo's newly announced sojourns into space, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M, are already sending avid Wii fans into convulsive seizures of glee (gleezures, if you will). Though it's the kind of behavior that blends well with the bustling E3 crowds, it's rarely professional for those of us trying to do work. As a preventative measure, we've etched the tragic facts of Nintendo's release schedule into our minds, bringing us down to earth from the galactic highs offered by Mario and Samus' returns.

They're currently not due until 2010. Gleezure contained.

Well, we didn't see this coming. Team Ninja is apparently collaborating with Nintendo on Metroid: Other M. It's going to "reveal a Metroid game unlike any you've experienced before", and it's both first and third person and it's coming in 2010. Oh, and Samus speaks!

We're still not sure how we feel about it, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that Samus will get jiggle tech. Don't ask us about the logistics, that's not our job.