No Metroid until Q3 at least

Nintendo has confirmed that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption won't be released in the first half of 2007 because Nintendo and developer Retro Studios want to make sure it's "perfect".

"Where is Metroid? Metroid is not going to ship by June. We've announced all of our games through the end of June," Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told Newsweek.

"And the fact with Metroid is we want to make sure that that game is perfect. Unfortunately, Metroid Prime 2 didn't live up to our expectations, it didn't live up to Retro's expectations [from a sales standpoint]."

Nintendo has Mario Party 8, Big Brain Academy, Mario Strikers: Charged Football and Pokémon Battle Revolution confirmed for release in Europe in the first half of 2007, with Super Paper Mario down for US release next week, but Metroid Prime - along with Super Mario Galaxy, which has already slipped toward the end of the year - is held up as one of the Wii's potential killer applications, and its absence is certainly being felt.

Not least in light of some disappointing first- and third-party stopgap releases, and a lack of interest in certain titles, like Excite Truck.

But Fils-Aime was adamant that Prime will be worth the wait. "We want the sell-through as well as the critical acclaim for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption to be the best in the series, and that's a lofty bar," he said. "To do that is taking a little bit more time than we had anticipated. But it's coming. And it will be great."