It's simple, they don't advertise or barely advertise any of their games because they don't need to. 80% of their games end up selling in the millions, and 20% of them sell like 10M+. So what's the point of spending cash in advertising their games when they already sell well without it..

Metroid Prime's genre is best described as a "First Person Adventure". The shooting aspect is just one of many different gameplay elements that  make up a Metroid game. Exploration, Puzzle Solving, Backtracking ,Platforming and of course combat are the others. Metroid is much like the Legend of Zelda Series. Simply stating that 'Nintendo should  give the series over to a PC shooter company and let them go wild it" is a horribly misinformed statement and shows that you don't really know anything about Metroid and what makes it unique.

As for your second statement. Nintendo didn't hand over SSB to Namco. They are simpy helping Nintendo develop the game. Masahiro Sakuria is directing the game along with his team.

Lastly, what do you mean by people will start taking the franchise more seriously? Are you reffering to in the fighting community, or just the general gamer?    

If its the latter then what? SSB is a platforming/fighting game about a bunch of Nintendo's iconic characters coming together to fight. It was never meant to be taken seriously.

I'm talking about a specific market, where Nintendo games don't sell like they do in the casual/non-gamer market.

I'm talking about the Halo, Assassin's Creed, COD, Batman, etc. market.

Put that in your pipe, and try to post again with that in mind.

In reply to this, his point still stands if you replace "PC shooter company" with "Adventure company". Think "Bethesda" or "Capcom", whatevs same diff, right. Try to get his point.

The second part, though SSB is not the BEST example, the point still stands by using Zelda's Oracle series on the Gameboy, which Nintendo handed to Capcom for design and development.

Also, you can be sure that Miyamoto helped direct Metroid Prime though it wasn't made in house, but by an American studio owned by Nintendo, that is, Retro Studios. The same logic, once again, applies.

Or even better, Other M.

1) - marketing is a very important factor for game sales, but what im trying to say is the past nintendo console owners have generally been kids and young teens. so even if you market a game like metriod that is targeted to a more adult audience to past nintendo console owners it wont interest them much even if the game is a great one. its like trying to market hugo boss suits to amish people, they just wont be interested no matter how good the suits are (i know its bad metaphore but i think it makes the point im trying to say)

2- well yes, because thats generally the demographic that nintendo consoles sell to. why? because the games are directed at them. mario, donkey kong, mario kart, 2d mario for example are games that appeal to kids and young teens and its why it sells to them. also brand recognition of nintnedo consoles is very high and popular with parents wanting to buy their kids a console, for example i my self would buy my kids (if i had any) a nintendo console rather than a sony/ms console even though i do prefer sony consoles and games my self.

3- no, its not the case, metriod does have decent sales, its just that one game wont change the bussines tactics of nintendo or adobtion rate of a nintendo consoles among adult consumers. they need a steady and constant stream of high quality games that are targeted towards them. hence why third party support is so important. nintendo consoles usually dont get 3rd party support and its hard for them to convince them to develop for their consoles because as i said, one or two games wont cut it, they need constant support which is something very hard to convince companies to do all of a sudden and all at the same time.

is there anything wrong with nintendo targeting kids and young teens with their consoles? absolutly not, for some reason people take that as in insult towards the company or take it as a personal insult because they like nintendo consoles when it in no way is. but what im saying is the answer to your question, or atleast my personal opinion to what is the answer to your question

Fair answer. For 1), I will ask you, what if Nintendo wanted to sell to a new market (older teens)? What if hugo boss wanted to market to amish people, what would they need to do to succeed? My suggestion was a) offer a product that interests said market, and b) advertise it so they know about it. No advertisement, no sale.

2) Can that be said on the launch of a new console though? The cube wasn't selling to the casual/non-gamer crowd, yet Nintendo had a brand/image change and marketted to the non-gamer/casual crowd on the launch of a new console, and, well, it worked! Isn't that possible for the older-teen market also? They don't need to be core, just older-teen.

For 3), what if I told you that Halo and Gears alone, two games, were largely responsible for the intial appeal of the 360 to the older teen crowd in the first two years of the console's lifecycle? From there on, 3rd party multiplats were viable on the platform. Don't you see it possible with Metroid and another IP, and if it is, shouldn't the marketing suit that new strategy? That's the OP question.

Nobody expects a constant stream of exclusives within the first two years, nobody did for the PS360, nobody will here. So pushing to that market with 1 or 2 flagships, as we've seen with the 360, is a viable strategy. However, even then, the strategy will fail if the marketing doesn't push the games accordingly.

1. True, IF he would of stated that Metroid should be given to an "Adventure Company" his point still stands. But I like stated before, he is unfamiliar with Metroid games which diminishes his validity in the subject. It would be like someone stating that the next Zelda game should be given to the God of War because Zelda is a sword combat/hack and slash game.

2. No, Nintendo is both publishing and developing the new SSB. Namco is a part of the developement team, they have joined Nintendo's team.

It's true that the games you posted were developed by outside teams, just like Star Fox Assault was developed by Namco.

SSB is like Mario Kart7. Retro helped design some stages for MK7 but the game was still developed by Nintendo EAD.

1. I understand what you mean, but imho having played the Prime games I think it's fair to call them a shooter, much like Bioshock is a shooter. They're adventure games, but with shooter mechanics and other tools. It's being a bit picky to do that at this point. But I see what you mean.

2. I know, that's why I gave the alternate examples to show the point he was trying to make, despite the ill-suited example.

I understand.

But in the end, given that his point stands with the new examples I provided, don't you think his ideas are valid, and if so, if they were to outsource it, if the marketing and advertising was bad, do you believe it would "suffer" the same fate as Prime? That's the OP question ;)

1) - well if nintendo wanted to sell to a new market all they need to do is make products that appeal to that market.  its much easier said than done of course. your suggestion is correct, but i would say offer not one product, not two, but many so it can have good pentration and sell to that market properly

2) well selling to the non-gamer/casual is very different to selling to the adult gamer audience. its basically the blue ocean/ red ocean strategy. im pretty sure every nintendo die hard fan heard of this, but if you didnt ill give you a quick explanation to what it is. going back to my point the casual crowd was in the blue ocean part. while the more adult gamer is in the red ocean part. nintendo didnt have to fight to get the cusual crowd, but to get the adult crowd they have to compete with ms/sony. the problem with that is again brand recognition. nintendo is seen as the console for kids/teens while adults see sony/ms as the console for adults. nintendo has to 1) - change that image without alienating their current fan base. 2) provide products that appeal to adult crowd. 3) successfully market there new products to the new market they want to appeal to. which is something easier said than done, again.

3) by steady stream of high quality games i didnt mean just excluisves, i ment 3rd party games as well. 3rd party games will be the majorty of that steady stream of products. exclusives job is to differentiate a console from its competitors. it why halo and gears pushed the 360, because they were the deciding factor between it and the ps3 in its early days. they both got 3rd party games but xbox had halo and gears so people went to xbox and its why ps3 sales didnt pick up quickly until 2009 when uncharted 2, killzone2 and infamous came out. 

@bolded. no, metriod doesnt have anywhere near the same appeal as halo does, and it never will. no matter how much they market it halo will still sell much better than metriod. halo is a very popular form of pop culture specially between adults and thats something no company can intentionally make or plan, it just happens. metriod wont ever be. thats why metriod and another game wont be enough to sell that console to the adult market. looking at sony they needed a huge list of exculsives directed at adults to sell there console where MS just needed halo and gears. sony had uncharted, killzone, infamous, heavy rain, god of war, gran turismo, MLB, motorstorm, metal gear 4 and resistance to get that market pentration add to that that there reputation and brand recoginition is very popular between the adult gamer market. 

i completly agree with you, marketing is a VERY important part of a game selling, but metriod didnt sell much not because of marketing, but because of who they were marketing it to

I'm a Nintendo fanatic, and even I will admit that Metroid Prime was highly overrated. The only thing it had going for it were graphics that looked nice at the time. The setting was empty even compared to previous 2D metroids, and the gameplay was both much slower and clunkier than its SNES predecessor. The gameplay of Prime is largely about running through caves at a slow pace, shooting at things and scanning other things.

Assassin's Creed 2 and on offer rich and highly interesting environments with very smooth gameplay. I really feel that other Nintendo fans are really missing out if they ignore this series. Hopefully the collection will come to Wii U. It was one of the series on PS3 that didn't disappoint, rather it was surprisingly excellent (made up for disappointments like Red Dead Redemption, Resident Evil 5, Final Fantasy 13, and Grand Theft Auto 4). No comment on Halo, on a Microsoft system and I refuse to buy their products.