Well I disagree with the whole lot of you, it's one part 2D Metroid one part Ninja Gaiden, and http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/7709/ninja-gaiden-ii/ it's sales are actually trending about the same lol which sorta defeats the "most people interested in this have a PS3 and 360" and it's not a Retro Metroid game so it seems to be pissing off the fans that joined in during the Cube days.  

So you're working with a game that appeals more towards the Ninja Gaiden fanbase that love those sorts of action games mixed with the fans of the Metroid series prior to the cube since it seems to shun everyone else.  

Nintendo said the game didn't bomb for them but they were actually looking for 2 million and to be honest with how much I enjoyed this title I wish it hit that mark but I see why it won't.  Right when the first trailers came and it said Team Ninja I had a thought it's gonna be pretty different and likely split the fanbase but I held onto a little hope the game would keep the Metroid fans and bring in some new people that like the Ninja Gaiden sort of action.

For another reference the Metroid Trilogy collection is sitting at the same sales, probably one of the best deals in all of gaming, it even updated those horrid MP1&2 GC controls, but alas the game struggled and I can still find you a shit ton of unsold copies on shelves of retail stores. 

Other M doesn't prove jack about HD vs Wii audience trends, Metroid fans know where to get their Metroid fix seriously if they bought Corruption whats stopping them from buying Other M?  Their 360 threatening to kill itself?  The PS3 wanting to shoot blurays at them? No, they didn't because the game is different and not what they wanted bad reviews didn't help them make the plunge neither.  Now try to be more reasonable than that   

Here's 4 reasons why:

1.  An iconic badass was turned into a sniveling wuss. 

2.  The cutscenes go on forever and interrupt the gameplay.  On top of that, the scenes are horribly acted, poorly written, and boring.

3.  The gameplay stinks.  Continuous tapping the D-pad in order to jump out of the way 99% of the time while charging your beam for a locked on shot is not difficult.

4.  The Prime games are better in every way imaginable.

Besides for that, it's a pretty good game.   

Honestly, the commercials turned me off the game.

The one defining thing I liked about Samus was that she was more or less the sole female badass in gaming... who's main characteristic was just "I get stuff done."

The adding on of a way to cliched "tragic hero" that seems to be the norm personality... just killed any interest I had i the game.

Personality isn't bad, but through the gameplay and lack of characterization up to this point... Samus in my mind = consumete proffesional.

Basically, what everybody made Boba Fett out to be but she had actual badass feats rather then just getting by on a cool helmet. 

Edit: And not only was it a normal "tragic hero" whining type personality but it was one over a freaking surget child, because got forbid that even a badass woman might not want to have a freakin kid. 

I don't think 2 million was realistic at all for Metroid. Had they made a 2D platformer out of it ala NSMB and DKCR then maybe, but anything else would have failed. Heck even Pime 4 made by Retro would've failed, honestly.

Metroid on home consoles has fallen quite hard since Metroid Prime on GC. MP2 sold less than half (which is several times more terrible than Other M's performance, imho) and MP3 improved by a couple of 10k's over MP2 but ended up selling less than half compared to MP1.

Given the demographics of the Wii and the cutscene- and storyheavy (ok, heavy if compared to other Nintendo games, otherwise not so much) direction of Other M (and it being Metrogaiden ) I think it was madness to expect that much. The competition that Benga brought up doesn't help either. 500k-750k would've been a good target and anything above that would be icing on the cake.

Disclaimer: This post contained 15% damage control.

If the game world was as open as the postgame, and the cutscenes were excised or significantly scaled back, I think the game would've done better though.  It did do a lot to alienate the traditional Metroid base... when you do a major design shift, you should really try to adhere to the series fundamentals as much as possible.  That's what Prime 1 did, and it was ore successful for it.

It also had a hype train you wouldn't believe with some cool ads to back it up. 

So they should have expected it to sell 33-50% as much as the last Metroid game on the console? Why would it be realistic to expect it to be the worst-selling console Metroid of all time? Why make the game if those were their expectations?

See his disclaimer...

You an Earthbound fan questioning this?  Why make Mother 3 if they knew it was late in the GBAs life, not coming to America, nor going to sell a million?  Because it's a solid game that people would enjoy! I know that isn't really the case for Other M but it's not outside of Nintendos realm, they don't just make series that sell gangbusters they focus on the little guys too with things like Fire Emblem, Punch-Out!!!, and Sin and Punishment, those are all lower tier franchises (Metroid being queen of low tier) for Nintendo and the one series that they seem to try and push to Zelda tier is Metroid and has yet to make it. 

Well, that's a great question! I have no idea. What I do know is that the ones who knew what the game would be like and said "Hell, this will be a 2 million seller!" should've done some more research.

They did try to simplify the controls by not using the nunchuck but if they wanted that to attract some greenhorns they should've skipped the 3D part. The final gameplay just weren't very casual friendly. Looking at my copy of Other M there's nothing there to attract new gamers. There's auto-aim in the game but that isn't mentioned (in the pal version). What you have is basicaly "cutscenes!", "voices!", "weapon upgrades!", "close combat!", and "two perspectives!". It also has a 16 rating. So, not exactly a game to attract casual gamers, and if Nintendo thought it would they were mistaken.

So, we end up with the Metroid fanbase, which should be healthy enough to atleast make it a million seller. Unless they split the fanbase, which they did with the new direction. Someone at Nintendo must have understood that a chunk of the fans would be turned off, and with very few new gamers to fill the hole you don't end up with a huge seller.