Kensuke Tanabe said that Metroid Prime 4 wasn't at E3 this year so that people could focus on Luigi's Mansion 3.

“I shouldn’t say, it’s a little tricky… To be completely honest, at this E3 I just want people to pay attention to Luigi. If I mention something about Metroid Prime 4, people will focus on that. But when the time comes, I am so ready to talk about it!” ~Tanabe on not having Metroid Prime 4 at E3.

Nice to have an explanation as to why Metroid Prime 4 wasn't there, and the decision might end up helping Luigi's Mansion 3 in the long run.

That's the PR way to put it. Of course there's truth to it, but the more important reason is that Luigi's Mansion 3 is much farther along in development than Metroid Prime 4, so 2019 is not only the last E3 where LM3 can be shown, but it also makes for a better showcase.

We already had an explanation for Metroid Prime 4 not being at E3, it came in January. I highly doubt that they actually had anything to show this year, but if he says so, whatever I guess.

Tbh I think the rumoured Retro project is being converted into MP4 as the were rumours it was a sci-fi game that was claimed to be several things from Star Fox racing to a Metroid/Star Fox crossover. The most recent rumour was back in 2017 were it was claimed their project was a new FPS, we know Retro submitted a demo of some sort to take over MP4 and it's not uncommon for studios to do spiritual successors of their prior work as Prime itself is the spiritual successor to Turok coming from the same team. It could be that RS took the opportunity to regain some favour from Nintendo after their dispute with Tanabe years back by offering to save the project and convert their own work.

I mean, it only makes sense. We already got the announcement last year and let's face it, we wouldn't have gotten actual gameplay footage anyway had they included Metroid Prime 4 in the Direct. So it's not about choosing which game to show, it's about showing games that actually have something to show.

Perhaps Metroid Prime 4 will get a Direct all to itself.

That makes it sound like MP4 is releasing soon. Not a good idea to mention it imo.

And Retro Tweeted the other day that they were looking for an art director.

Was not impressed by what I played from LM3. They need to tighten up the controls.

So does this mean Final Fantasy VII vs Metroid Prime 4 is back on?