Reggie originally thought Metroid: Other M would be a “killer moment” for the series

To say the least, Metroid: Other M was a different take on the classic franchise. Nintendo handed primary development off to Team Ninja, the team behind Ninja Gaiden. The title also took on a greater story emphasis compared to past entries. Ultimately it earned a mixed reception.

As it turns out, former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime initially had very high hopes for the title. On the latest episode of Kinda Funny Gamescast, he singled out Metroid: Other M as the game that didn’t hit the mass market the way he originally expected.

Reflecting on Metroid: Other M, Reggie said:

“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.”

Metroid: Other M was the closing announcement of Nintendo’s E3 presentation in 2009. It would go on to launch in August 2010.