I can't get excited until we start to get updates on the game. I don't think Retro is something that I would be excited about, just because there's so many things about the studio we don't know. But yeah, I think it's understandable why people would either dislike or like this news. I can understand why people would be happy or worried. 

Ya I can see it both ways, on one hand the studio has made 3 great Prime games but on the other hand that was over a decade ago and many of the people who made those games are no longer with the company.

Even with the news being bad, I feel a strange sense of relief at just getting some kind of update, the lack of new information after over a year and a half was becoming incredibly frustrating.

Yeah, I could imagine that they wanted to show something at E3 and when that couldn't happen they opted for the Game Awards.  And when they realized that wasn't going to happen they issued a veiled threat at the developer saying "Nintendo has internal expectations about when it is going to be released."  I'd imagine they gave them an end of the year deadline to make major headway and fix issues and when that didn't happen their probably already existing conversations with Retro Studios became finalized.  There's no way they decided this last week and gave us the word today.  I also think part of the strategy in announcing this is to clear those expectations for new Metroid info before the next Direct.  Not that most were expecting anything, but they know they had us worked to a fever pitch during the Game Awards.

I mean staff can certainly adjust to a new genre. They'll also probably hire a lot of new staff. They've already hired some new staff (I think I heard something of Halo 5 and Naughty Dog devs, but I could be wrong). Either way, i'm mostly worried about if we'll get any Retro game in the near future. I hope their unknown project wasn't cancelled. 

For sure, I just mean you cant assume Retro will do great since they did 3 already because it's not the same people.

And yes they have hired alot of people who had experience with other big games. If I recall they got some people from the studios you mentioned and I also think people who worked on stuff like Darksiders, Crysis and Bioshock but I might be remembering wrong as well.

I really hope the rumored Star Fox game by them is real and releasing this year, it would be a real shame if they have nothing released between Tropical Freeze and Prime 4, that will be like 7-8 years between releases for them.

I think the good news that we can take from this is that Nintendo is finally committed to making a decent Metroid Prime game and that they learned their lesson from the Federation Force disaster. I think almost every Metroid fan out their would rather just not have another Metroid than have anything less than the best effort from Nintendo. To me, this broadcast indicates that Nintendo now understands this about their fans. Regardless of whether Retro Studios is currently up to the task, Nintendo is clearly showing that they are willing to staff the studio up or provide Retro with the necessary support to make the game a success. Nintendo's commitment to making something decent is far more important in my opinion than which studio develops the game.

Hopefully, this will mean that Metroid Prime 4 will be Metroid's equivalent to BotW and will really move the franchise ahead. My biggest fear was that we would get a Metroid Prime 3 with updated graphics which was OK in 2007 but would be an absolute disaster in 2019. The entire gameplay mechanic and world design needs to be re-conceived, hopefully around the open world concept. MP4 cannot be formulaic re-release, it has to be what Metroid Prime was to Super Metroid.

The bad news is that the game is probably a long ways away. It took Nintendo about 5 years of intense development to get BotW ready and I would suspect that it will be something similar for Metroid (maybe it can be done in 3-4 tops). But remember, the only way that this game would be coming out quickly would be if it was crappy formulaic re-release. I would rather have it be a launch title on Nintendo's next console then get another Federation Force or Star Fox Zero any day.

Yeah, we can't be sure that Retro will make a good game. You're right. 

Maybe our friendship is the game and they are delaying until we realize that.

Looking back at that rumor, I agree with you. It's usually not Nintendo's MO to overshadow their biggest release (especially since it was releasing mere HOURS away) with one other one that will come in the future.