I don't understand this Reggie quote

[SonicAway]

Hiku said:

Faxanadu said:
He said rather straight out that they are developing it, but that they are too far away from release to announce it. It is a rather clear statement he makes, imo.

They haven't even started development on a new Metroid, according to a post-E3 interview with Tanabe.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-17-next-proper-metroid-prime-would-likely-now-be-on-nx

Unless they started a few days ago, that's not what Reggie was saying.

Tanabe said the next Metroid PRIME hasn't started development. Even the title of the article says this.

 

Prime is just a subseries of Metroid.