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You may have completed Metroid Prime Trilogy and begun to enter Full Excitement Mode™ for next year's Metroid Other M, but there could be even more Metroid in store under Prime's banner of first-person action. Nintendo's Kensuke Tanabe, who oversaw development on the Prime games for Nintendo at Retro Studios, recently told ONM that Nintendo is "always planning to make new games in the Metroid Prime series."

Tanabe didn't speak of a continuation on Wii, but noted that depending "on the timing and the situation, we cannot deny the possibility of realising it on DS or DSi." Though Retro hasn't isolated itself from the franchise, we know Nintendo isn't shy about sharing Samus with external developers. Just don't call it "Metroid Dread," guys. Bad memories.

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!

Update: The comments have been closed and the winner will be contacted shortly. Check your email, folks! And thanks to everyone for entering!

How is it that every time we run a Swag Saturday/Sunday post for a Nintendo Wii game, it's something wonderful? Last time we offered you Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, and this week we're treating one lucky winner to a copy of Metroid Prime Trilogy! To get your hands on it, leave a comment below telling us your favorite moment in the Metroid series -- yes, you can go all the way back to NES. We'll pick one answer at random tomorrow evening to receive the fancy "Collector's Edition" you see above. One stipulation: Automatic disqualification should your answer include the Zero Suit in any way. You know why, ya scoundrels!

• Leave a comment telling us your favorite moment in the Metroid series, excluding those that involve the Zero Suit.
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec, for obvious reasons)
• Limit 1 entry per person per day
• This entry period ends at 8:31PM ET on Monday, September 21
  
• At that time, we'll randomly select one winner to receive Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii ($50 ARV)
• For a list of complete rules, click here

It turns out the word "damn" isn't the only thing missing from Metroid Prime Trilogy. This YouTube video (after the break) demonstrates a few minor, but nice, graphical effects that seem to have been excised from the Wii release of the first Metroid Prime -- specifically, the ripple effect when Samus moves around in water, and the Ice Beam's freezing condensation, which used to gather around the gun when charging Ice Beam shots.

At first we thought the effects might have been a casualty of the process of cramming three games onto one disc, but this video shows that the Japanese version of Prime on Wii, which had a Wii disc all to itself, also lacks the freezing effect (skip to the last thirty seconds to see). So what happened? It could merely be a glitch, or the result of a hasty port. It's certainly nothing to get too upset or burn your Trilogy disc over. Just kind of ... odd.

Click image to morph into galleryUpdate: The giveaway has come to a close. Keep an eye on your email to see if you won!

On this edition of Joyswag, we're looking to unload one copy of Metroid Prime Trilogy ($50ARV). Wouldn't you like having all three Metroid Prime titles on a single disc? If so, check out the details below this text. Good luck!

• Leave a comment telling us which Metroid Prime game is your favorite
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec)
• Limit 1 entry per person per day
• This entry period ends at 1:00PM ET on Monday, September 7
  
• At that time, we'll randomly select one winner to receive Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii($50 ARV)
• For a list of complete rules, click here

Promoting the recently-released Metroid Prime Trilogy, IGN posted a video tour (embedded after the break) of Retro Studios' Texas offices. In the video, Retro President and CEO Michael Kelbaugh discusses the franchise and the possibility of a Retro return to the Metroid series.

While Kelbaugh notes the team was aware it would only be responsible for a trilogy within the franchise, he could not say the team will never return to Samus' universe. "I think Retro will always be associated with the Metroid Prime franchise and who knows, maybe we'll do another one someday," Kelbaugh said, leaving the door to a possible Metroid return slightly ajar.

For now, Retro Studios has hung up its Galactic Federation club coat and is working on new projects, in hopes to "refresh" its development team. Metroid continues to grow elsewhere with Team Ninja currently developing Metroid: Other M for the Wii. An exciting game on the Wii's horizon -- albeit with a terrible name.

If you're in the UK and your Metroid Prime Trilogy purchase will be the second time you've bought one of the Prime games, Nintendo has an enticing offer for you. Be one of the first 5,000 to purchase the Wii collection and register it on Club Nintendo, and, provided you've registered Metroid Prime 1, 2, or 3 in the past, you'll get a free Virtual Console download of the NES Metroid game.

Sure, if you're a big enough Metroid fan to be buying Trilogy despite already owning the game, it's likely you already have Metroid, either on the NES, the Virtual Console, or as a connection bonus on the GameCube Metroid Prime disc. But it's still wonderful precedent to have Nintendo giving away a Virtual Console game to promote a new release.

But why limit it only to the suckers buying one of the games twice? And why only 5,000? A Virtual Console download costs Nintendo nothing.

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The Wii release of Metroid Prime Trilogy just keeps getting better. Yesterday, we learned that it would include a lovely tin and an artbook, and now GameStop has just revealed that copies pre-ordered from the retailer will also come with a free t-shirt! It also comes with video games!

In our opinion, the shirt looks pretty great (we're assuming it's not all dithered in real life like it is in the picture), even with the logo on the side, and even with the added baggage of identifying you as a GameStop shopper. The offer is valid for both in-store and online pre-orders.

We felt a brief jolt of excitement when we saw this graphic on the new Japanese Metroid series website. Right under the boxarts for the two New Play Control Metroid Prime remakes and Metroid Prime 3, this graphic teases "Another side story -- coming soon"! The Japanese text underneath says "Follow the history of Metroid Prime from the perspective of the Space Pirates", which would potentially be a pretty cool game.

However, we don't think it's going to be a new Metroid Prime spinoff at all. For one thing, Nintendo wouldn't really tease a new game like that, and certainly not in Japan, where nobody cares about Metroid. Given that the site provides quick synopses of each game's storyline, we're guessing this is going to be some story retrospective -- as in just a thing on the site. Most likely, it's some clever way of packaging the whole backstory of the series for new players. But for us, it'll be just more incomprehensible Japanese text.

It could be a new game, but it probably isn't. Whatever it is, we'll find out -soon-!

[Via NeoGAF]

Nintendo's new Japanese commercials for the New Play Control version of Metroid Prime pretty well answer the question of how the new controls work. The commercials show example motions over in-game activities, revealing that the control scheme for the Wii remake of Retro Studios' first-person adventure game are similar to the controls found in Metroid Prime 3. The clip goes by too quickly and doesn't feature enough detail for us to determine if any changes have been made to the Corruption control scheme, but we doubt it.

This is basically what we expected, and we're delighted to see it: aside from a minor issue with the + and - buttons, the Wiimote/Nunchuk controls for Metroid Prime 3 were just right. We're quite excited about getting to use them in the magnificent first Prime.

Next month, Nintendo will debut its New Play Control! (or NEW PLAY CONTROL!) line of games in the west, beginning with Europe. Naturally, we really like the idea of great GameCube games with added 16:9 widescreen support and waggle-based controls, and it could be a licence to print money for Nintendo, if Mario Power Tennis' chart-topping debut in Japan is anything to go by.

Will us westerners gobble up these repackaged games as keenly as Japanese gamers? It's likely to depend heavily on pricing -- the games look set to cost $30 in the U.S., and £30 in the UK. Is that too much, just the right amount, or too little (you maniac)?

Have your say in our poll past the break!

According to Gamekyo, the Wii de Asobu/New Play Control remake of Retro Studios' Metroid Prime has been scheduled for release in Japan on February 12. We're not sure where they got that date, but it seems reasonable enough, given the biweekly releases so far in the series of Gamecube updates.

While it will be interesting to see how the Japanese Wii audience reacts to Prime, this is most relevant to gamers outside of Japan due to the fact that the Pikmin and Mario Tennis remakes are expected to be out in North America and Europe in February and March, very soon after the releases of those two games in Japan. This means that we could possibly see Metroid Prime sometime in the first half of this year -- although Donkey Kong Jungle Beat came out in Japan before either of those others, and we haven't seen that one yet.

IGN has confirmed that the "Play on Wii" Pikmin port is more than just a repackaging -- it and the other Play on Wii GameCube games will have updated Wiimote controls. Pikmin is actually the second of these to be released, and it'll hit Japan on December 25 of this year for 3,800 yen ($36). It'll be preceded on December 11 by the game we officially nominate Least Likely to Benefit from New Controls: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. If these games are released here, we would expect them to be slightly cheaper than the Japanese price (like all games).

Titles announced for 2009 include Mario Tennis, Metroid Prime 1 and 2, Pikmin 2, and -- best of all -- Chibi-Robo! It'll be interesting to see if Skip makes it a point-and-click like it was originally.

[Via Joystiq]

If you'll recall, three of Retro Studios' key developers – Mark Pacini, Todd Keller, and Jack Matthews – left the Nintendo-owned studio, famous for the Metroid Prime series, last April. Now the trio has announced the formation of an entirely new entity: Armature Studio. Armature isn't your run-of-the-mill developer though – a "core creative team" will be tasked with creating new intellectual properties and then partner with an external development team to implement the design. It's an outsourcing model (think Wideload) that allows smaller creative teams the ability to develop AAA titles.

But while the model is great, it's not very valuable without a publishing partner to help get those games out there. Cue: "a long term, exclusive publishing deal with EA" – presumably the secretive EA Blueprint, since that imprint's Louis Castle is serving as executive producer for the Armature titles. For the guys at Armature, they're just excited to "rethink how games are developed for this generation of consoles." Yup, "consoles" – no longer limited to Nintendo hardware, Pacini says, "What really gets me going is that now, no platform is off limits." Xbox 360? PS3? Gizmondo?