With the rumour that Metroid 3DS will be announced at Nintendo's big event on Wed I have begun wondering could a Metroid title on the 3DS be more successful then Other M and Hunters for the DS? Now I know alot of VGChartz users love Metroid but lets be honest, the last few Metroid games did not break a million copies sold on two of the most successful platforms to have ever been built.

Metroid Hunters sold a measley 690,000 copies and Other M sold 720,000. Now yes these are decent numbers for a third party title. But when compared with Nintendo's first party software Metroid is one of its worst selling IP's this generation. Other franchises like Custom Robo and BattalionWars are the only two off the top of my head that sold significantly lower then Metroid.

So would launching a Metroid title near the 3DS's launch window be smart sales wise? If Hunters which was pretty much a launch title failed to sell over a million units would a 3DS title do any better?

No, it can't sell on a console that's already d0m3d.

Bah, Metroid is d0med as well. d0med plus d0med = Profit.

it'll sell like other portable M games I supose... it's not like the fanbase for metroid is increasing, so you can't expect huge numbers.

Probably not. As long as they keep it in the style of Prime and Hunters, it's not going to excel for sales. However, if they bring back the old style, ala the original or Super Metroid, it may do better.

Metroid: Other says hi

depends on developer and genre...

The "big event" rumor has been trounced due to Jonathan Ross confirming that he WASN'T talking about Metroid.

Not an unreasonable conclusion, except that all of the Prime games sold in the range of Super Metroid - Echoes was a hundred thousand or so lower, but Corruption was a little higher.

The original Prime outsold the original Metroid to be the best-selling game in the series.

It's not genre and mechanics that's the problem, here.

Prime's success is attributed to aggressive bundling in part, but i think it also scores from being the "normal" Metroid released after 8 years of nothing, given that Fusion was stranger-looking of the two. This i think would account for Fusion's sales being perhaps lower than they should have been, since it very well might have been crowded out.

It seems the franchise has been spread too thin, i think. If it were cut back to a once-per-generation affair with a focus on the core appeal of the franchise, perhaps they could optimize the franchise as it is. Their only alternative for growth is continued dangerous meddling a la Other M, which could do irreperable damage to the franchise before they find the right "new" formula for it