Nintendo's not going to make Sakamoto govel, he just gave them Tomodachi Collection.  They'll probably let him do whatever the fuck he wants with Metroid, despite Other M flopping.... only he'll have to spend less doing it (buh-bye cutscenes!).

Sakamoto's a smart guy though, I doubt the negative response MOM got is something he won't take to heart.  Zero Mission went about "fixing" nearly all the "flaws" from Fusion, I'm pretty sure we'll see the same for his next Metroid versus Other M.

Zero Mission also sold one third of what Fusion did, and was honestly less of a game.

The point being he is able to take criticism and build on it, and is not inured from all outside influence

Though *he* has little to do with it. It's Nintendo that willingly allowed Other M to happen, and Nintendo that will mandate change

I wasn't aware that Fusion had that much criticism leveled at it to begin with. I thought reactions to it were enormously positive, and resulted in positive sales that eclipsed Super Metroid.

I'm not aware of how he handles criticism, though I agree that it ultimately won't matter.

It certainly felt unorthodox, in spite of being an essential clone of Super Metroid as far as gameplay went. Now i don't recall critical response at all because i wasn't paying any attention to the gaming media back then, but it seemed to me that the response was lacklustre, especially compared to Prime (but given that Prime has never been surpassed in gaming altogether, that's not anything to be ashamed of)

It certainly felt unorthodox, in spite of being an essential clone of Super Metroid as far as gameplay went. Now i don't recall critical response at all because i wasn't paying any attention to the gaming media back then, but it seemed to me that the response was lacklustre, especially compared to Prime (but given that Prime has never been surpassed in gaming altogether, that's not anything to be ashamed of)

It got blasted for being linear, story driven and Adam always talking to you and giving you access to new areas while closing old ones (sound familiar?).  It definitely got overshadowed by Prime too, despite being the far better game imo. 

Zero Mission was somewhat better received iirc, but being a remake probably held it back to some degree.  I've never actually seen total sales (shipments) though, I have to imagine it at least cleared a million?

I wish you guys would at least try to look this stuff up.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/game-boy-advance/metroid-zero-mission

Zero Mission actually reviewed worse than Fusion did, with six more reviews. Again, Fusion reviewed fantastically for a handheld, Zero Mission less so. Zero Mission both didn't review as well and didn't sell as well; it was not received as well as Fusion by any metric. If it was considered an "imporvement" then it was considered an improvement by a band too narrow to be considered relevant on a larger scale.

I don't know shipment numbers but VGChartz used to have Zero Mission listed at just over 500k; I don't know why it's not anymore.

I wish you'd stop simply pointing to meta scores as some ultimate arbiter of anything.  Numbers are numbers, at least try to actually get to the substance of some reviews.

I'll admit, my response is based largely off recollection.  Fusion was generally seen as "sub-Super", while Prime was essentially "Super 2" or "Super 3D".  Zero Mission, by those who played it, was generally seen as a return to form post-Fusion (bar the stealth bit, which some didn't like).