Can someone tell me who owned Metroid before Nintendo?? I mean the thread is asking for IPs that got better when sold and Metroid seems to come up often

Don't know if any did or not but most of the interplay staff formed obsidian who Bethesda allowed to make new Vegas

Nobody. People must've got confused and thought that Retro owned Metroid at some point.

Usually it doesn't work, for obvious reasons. New people will not have the same emotional investment, or care for someone elses creation. How do you think a studio feels to have to take on someone elses baby Instead of creating their own? I now I wouldn't be, it's a good way to hurt new studio in particular.

Max Payne 3... (shoot me)
XCOM came after a lot of X-com crap from Hasbro

As a guy that bought every single Tomb Raider ever made INCLUDING the horrendous Angel of Darkness, I say Tomb Raider Legend was the best thing to ever happen to the franchise. It was still an Eidos game but Core stepped aside and let Crystal Dynamics work their magic.

I personally think Devil May Cry (the new one) is the best of the franchise. Oh, I just wanted to say the Crash was always a Universal Studios property even though Naughty Dog made it great.

Agreed. The Sands of Time trilogy is one of the best ever made.

I can't really think of any other examples though.

Rare did a great job with Donkey Kong, Retro with Metroid, Ready at Dawn with Jak and Daxter/God of War...but those never really changed hands.

Absolutely not an exception. Spyro went to hell after he was sold. I've never been so brokenhearted about a franchise. Skylanders came much later, and is more the resurrected, mutilated corpse of Spyro than actually Spyro. There's a reason Spyro isn't in the title anymore. Spyro is DEAD. Deader than any character has ever been in the history of intellectual property. Skylander's success just makes Spyro even MORE dead.

Regarding the original question, it almost never happens that an IP truly changes hands and becomes indisputably better after being sold. Sometimes great IPs continue to be great IPs, but rarely does a bad or mediocre one start to become good, and quite frequently really good ones become horrendous. When someone buys an IP, they do so for money. On the other hand, when a company keeps an IP but has another company develop a game with it, they still care about it and tend to only give the IP to someone they trust to do it justice.

Which is why I ask. There are plenty of examples of the bold happening without the IP being sold. More than enough history to show Gears can still be very good and very popular.

There's a laundry list. TRUST ME.