RUMOR - Retro's Wii U title facing rocky development, Nin...

[midorigreen]

o wanted Retro to start on a Metroid Prime 4 after completing the 3rd game. That doesn't make sense from a business perspective (oversaturation) and having a studio only work on one series for that long. Nintendo would know better than to have one of their top studios to work with basically one franchise for over 10 years.

I'm not saying I believe her (It makes no difference if she's right or wrong...it's the way the industry works), but your defense against it certainly isn't that great. "Over saturation"? Really? You mean like releasing 2 New Super Mario Bros. games in the same year? That kind of over saturation? Oh wait, I'm sorry, it wouldn't be that kind of over saturation because it would take 2 years to make the next Metroid and there would be a gap of time in between.

There are things that Nintendo has no problem over saturating the market with, obviously the offshoot Mario games (i.e. stuff besides Mario 64, Sunshine, Galaxy). New Super Mario games are an obvious example of something they don't mind making too many of. But I think the way Nintendo views Metroid is in the same vein as Zelda. They make them infrequently and good. Obviously Other M is an exception to the quality of those kinds of franchises, but I don't consider that a real Metroid game.

A 4th Prime game in a similar style just sounds like something they wouldn't do, at least right after Metroid Prime 3 was completed. Just my opinion, obviously, but that's how I see Metroid. Part of what makes Metroid special is that there haven't been tons of them. Same with the main Zelda games.

The thing about Mario titles is that even if they over-saturate the character they don't over-saturate the game play. each of their systems has only received only one or two games of a specific genre so even if we are getting three different Mario games for the 3DS, one is a 2D platformer, one is a 3D action adventure and the last is an RPG.

[Atariadam]

I have to agree with others that this is something that happens in game development.

I can see some employees feeling upset that they have no creative freedom while working on these games. . . but I cant agree with that idea eitherway. These people were hired to work on a franchise that is owned by another company (One from a different culture mind you) so acting like a child cause they cant change or add anything is foolhardy. I think using that (Lack of creative expression) as a reason to "justify" needing to leave a game company is absurd. An Artists ego is a dangerous thing sometimes.

Leave Retro cause you want to create different games sure, but dont bitch cause Nintendo doesnt want some random people to alter their franchises. Start your own team and work some magic. Hopefully the idea is good enough to gain support from publishers to get the game to shelves so people can play.

As for Emily, sorry, I do agree that some of those rumors were kinda obvious. Does that mean that these people had to voice their opinion so harshly? I dont think so, but I can see the base of their grievances.

My two cents...

Also, since we are talking Metroid a bit, im throwing this in the mix not to flamebait just feel the need to say. I found Metroid Other M to be a better game than the Metroid Prime trilogy. Again, no offence to anyone, just giving Other M some love, maybe the only love itll get... ... ...

[Triforce of the Gods]

Also, since we are talking Metroid a bit, im throwing this in the mix not to flamebait just feel the need to say. I found Metroid Other M to be a better game than the Metroid Prime trilogy. Again, no offence to anyone, just giving Other M some love, maybe the only love itll get... ... ...

I liked Other M as much as Prime when I first played it. Of course my second play through I ignored the story and the third (my Hard Mode run) I abandoned part way through cause I got Okami, so I haven't touched it in, what, almost two years?

[Mike_Intellivision]

Only one thing does not make sense to me ... In this business issue have thought that if Nintendo had been serious abut an MP4 before it went the Other M route that such information would have someone leaked out somewhere (NeoGAF).

As far as potential issues with Retro, some sounds like the nature of the business and some fits the rumor of the Retro game being pulled from e3.

Mike from Morgantown

[Devil_Rising]

Show of hands folks. How many of you in here read this bit of "news" and took it completely at face value, assuming it's 100% true. Oh wait.........look who I'm asking.


Also, forgive my ignorance, but who is this Emily Rogers, and what exactly are her qualifications to be believing "inside info" she posts on the internet about the gaming business? Just curious. Because do keep in mind....there are a LOT of folks on the internet who claim to have "inside info".

[deuxhero]

So no one else caught that the employees are supposedly going to a studio that is is dead in the water?

Bioware Austin or iD?

Bioware Austin went down with ToRtanic, they are on a skeleton crew that doesn't include some of the big people in the team.

[gwalms]

Spot on? When the hell has she ever been spot on? Isn't this the same girl who guaranteed that all her pre-E3 2011 predictions about the Project Cafe would come true, and none of them did. Didn't she supposedly have leaked screen shots of games that never happen. So when has she ever been spot on? The only time she has been spot on about anything is when she made obvious predictions, that would eventually have to come true. That's like me saying a Mario Kart game is in development for the Wii U, well no SH!T sherlock, its bound to come true eventually!

Saying Pikmin 3 coming to Project Cafe is not an obvious thing to say.

Nintendo could have easily released Pikmin 3 for the Wii on the same year that Skyward Sword and Kirby Wii came out. This was a game with a very long development span.

This was during a time when sites like IGN seemed certain that Skyward Sword would be ported to Project Cafe like Twilight Princess was ported to Wii. I also called that rubbish and said Skyward Sword was not being ported to Project Cafe.

Ugh.. okay.. Pikmin is a game everyone knows Miyamota wanted to be perfect when he released it. Its not some side scrolling Kirby Wii. There were rumors that Pikmin would be released on the Wii U for a while, and unlike Kirby so much, people had been constantly clamoring and asking about Pikmin 3, and getting very little information. Skyward Sword was not the same, and they announced and talked about their "next Zelda" more. There were much more rumors about it, as if it was closer to launch. Not only that, but the main feature and selling point behind Skyward Sword was its use of the Wii Motion+ controller. Sure, the Wii U can use the Wii Remotes, but other than that, there would be no real difference between a Wii and a Wii U version. With Twilight Princess, the Wii version had a simple, but slightly game changing, mapping of controls to the Wii Remote to differentiate it from the GCN version. It made the most sense to NOT assume it was a dual console release. The only one of those predictions of yours that was risky at all, in my book, was the lack of hard drive for the Wii U, but again, it is the most obvious guess looking at the 3DS, Wii, etc. And sure, while Nintendo has said they are going to try to focus on online more with their newer consoles (Wii U and the 3DS) if you look at the 3DS, and the comments they've made about online, they've never really connected the idea of a good online presence with having a large (or standard 360 size) hard drive standard. Also, you're quite attractive.

[KingBroly]

So no one else caught that the employees are supposedly going to a studio that is is dead in the water?

Bioware Austin or iD?

Bioware Austin went down with ToRtanic, they are on a skeleton crew that doesn't include some of the big people in the team.

If true, this information was probably brought to her attention before that happened.

[Sknygy]

Pardon me, but I'm still under the impression that Emily Roger's "if this rumour proves to be false, I shaln't post again" comment from May 2011 still stands where she told us all she was dating a Nintendo employee and knew Pikmin 3 and GTA V were to be unveiled for the Cafe at E3 2011?

[Noah Zero]

well, she was right about pikmin in a way... Nintendo didn't show any games during last year e3 so pikimin could have been ready as well at that time.

[DeAngelo Guillory]

Spot on? When the hell has she ever been spot on? Isn't this the same girl who guaranteed that all her pre-E3 2011 predictions about the Project Cafe would come true, and none of them did. Didn't she supposedly have leaked screen shots of games that never happen. So when has she ever been spot on? The only time she has been spot on about anything is when she made obvious predictions, that would eventually have to come true. That's like me saying a Mario Kart game is in development for the Wii U, well no SH!T sherlock, its bound to come true eventually!

Saying Pikmin 3 coming to Project Cafe is not an obvious thing to say.

Nintendo could have easily released Pikmin 3 for the Wii on the same year that Skyward Sword and Kirby Wii came out. This was a game with a very long development span.

This was during a time when sites like IGN seemed certain that Skyward Sword would be ported to Project Cafe like Twilight Princess was ported to Wii. I also called that rubbish and said Skyward Sword was not being ported to Project Cafe.

Ugh.. okay.. Pikmin is a game everyone knows Miyamota wanted to be perfect when he released it. Its not some side scrolling Kirby Wii. There were rumors that Pikmin would be released on the Wii U for a while, and unlike Kirby so much, people had been constantly clamoring and asking about Pikmin 3, and getting very little information. Skyward Sword was not the same, and they announced and talked about their "next Zelda" more. There were much more rumors about it, as if it was closer to launch. Not only that, but the main feature and selling point behind Skyward Sword was its use of the Wii Motion+ controller. Sure, the Wii U can use the Wii Remotes, but other than that, there would be no real difference between a Wii and a Wii U version. With Twilight Princess, the Wii version had a simple, but slightly game changing, mapping of controls to the Wii Remote to differentiate it from the GCN version. It made the most sense to NOT assume it was a dual console release. The only one of those predictions of yours that was risky at all, in my book, was the lack of hard drive for the Wii U, but again, it is the most obvious guess looking at the 3DS, Wii, etc. And sure, while Nintendo has said they are going to try to focus on online more with their newer consoles (Wii U and the 3DS) if you look at the 3DS, and the comments they've made about online, they've never really connected the idea of a good online presence with having a large (or standard 360 size) hard drive standard. Also, you're quite attractive.

Adding to that, Nintendo has a history of developing games for the current console, realizing it's too late at that point and releasing it for the next system.

Examples include but aren't limited to:
Mother 3 (technically it was uncancelled and reformatted but the principle's still the same)
Cubivore
Super Paper Mario
Killer Instinct 2
Kirby Air Ride
Dinosaur Planet

It was common sense that Pikmin 3 would hit the Wii U. It doesn't take Rain Man to figure that crap out.

well, she was right about pikmin in a way... Nintendo didn't show any games during last year e3 so pikimin could have been ready as well at that time.

I suppose you're the same person that believes John Edward can speak to the dead.

Predicting Pikmin 3 doesn't mean jack considering E3 2008 is when it was confirmed to be in development, it's like seeing a bear cub in the woods and saying "I sense the mother is nearby." No s#!&, really? Even there's a chance the mother bear may be separated or worse, dead, it doesn't take much to figure that out.

It's been stated countless times here that Pikmin 3 was a given, you can't exactly say that it was because of Emily Rogers we had insight that Pikmin 3 was being made much less that it was hitting the Wii U. ANYONE COULD HAVE GUESSED THAT! I know I did.

[Emily Rogers]

Also want to throw it out there that I posted about Rockstar receiving dev kits before anyone else did.

http://gonintendo.com/?p=155973 on April 15th.

Then on April 18th, 01net reported the same thing. 01net is famous for leaking PS Vita specs and pictures of the hardware before anyone else did. They also were the first to post about the Wii U controller having a large touchscreen before anyone did.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/19/rumor ... velopment/
http://www.01net.com/editorial/531787/l ... -nintendo/

[Hamr]

Quite a fascinating article, especially the in-depth breakdown on the individual roles of the various non-senior staff members that left.

Still, it seems like a similar bit on the staff members currently employed would have been useful for perspective in terms of quantifying just how much Retro DNA remains from their prior titles. There might be plenty of people who are gone, but what do we know about the ones who are still there?

There was someone who posted a list a month or so back detailing which staff members joined to work on what game (if I recall correctly, I believe the result was that something like fifteen staff members remain from the Prime team, thirty worked on Echoes, etc) and what capacity they served. Unfortunately, the source involved was a message board posting, so its credibility left something to be desired. :-/

[Rezbit]

That may be all well and good Emily, but as I said before, I think you are trying to make this worse than it is. Many of the names you listed were departures that happened in between MP1 and MP2, between MP2 and MP3, and between MP3 and DKCR.

You say Retro is a shell of their former self yet you fail to mention they still have a good foundation of roughly 25% of the original Prime team, almost half of the team from Echoes, and almost 75% of the team that worked on Corruption.

[wiired]

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Emily's rumors here turn out to be true. I found it very surprising that there was no Retro reveal at this year's E3

[Rezbit]

Quite a fascinating article, especially the in-depth breakdown on the individual roles of the various non-senior staff members that left.

Still, it seems like a similar bit on the staff members currently employed would have been useful for perspective in terms of quantifying just how much Retro DNA remains from their prior titles. There might be plenty of people who are gone, but what do we know about the ones who are still there?

There was someone who posted a list a month or so back detailing which staff members joined to work on what game (if I recall correctly, I believe the result was that something like fifteen staff members remain from the Prime team, thirty worked on Echoes, etc) and what capacity they served. Unfortunately, the source involved was a message board posting, so its credibility left something to be desired. :-/

I made a post a page or two back concerning who was still at Retro since MP1. Here is a more extensive list including who is still the since working on Echoes and Corruption as well. I did this research when DKCR came out because I was interested to see just how the Retro of new compared to the Retro of old (I have a slight obsession/fascination with Retro). I simply compared the different names credited in the instruction booklets. Note that it is entirely possible since the time that DKCR was released, more people may have left. I have taken into account the departures of the two leads on DKCR, as well as the names Emily mentioned in her article.

Still working at Retro since MP1: 15 people
Producer: Ryan Harris
Art: Ryan Powell, Elben Schafers, Chris Voellmann, Chuck Crist, Luis Ramierez
Animation: Dax Pallotta, Derek Bonikowski, Stephen Zafros
Engineering: Alex Quinones, Jim Gage, Akintunde Omitowoju
Sound: Frank Bry
Operations: Al Artus, George Thomas

Still working at Retro Since MP2: 25 people
Producers: Michael Kelbaugh, Ryan Harris
Senior Development Director: Bryan Walker
Design: Tom Ivey, Russle O'Henly
Art: Chuck Crist, Luis Ramierez, Elben Schafers, Ryan Powell, Chris Voellman, Teague Schultz, Sean Horton, Quinn Smith
Engineering: Jim Gage, Alex Quinones (Note - Akintunde Omitowoju is credited with engineering work on MP1 and DKCR, but not on Echoes or Corruption)
Animation: Dax Pallotta, Vince Joly (now the current art director), Stephen Zafros, Derek Bonikowski, Carlos Mendieta
Audio: Scott Petersen, Frank Bry
Operations: Al Artus, Kelly Johnson, George Thomas

Still working at Retro Since MP3: 42 People
Producers: Michael Kelbaugh, Ryan Harris, Bryan Walker
Design: Tom Ivey, Russle O'Henly, Bill Vandervoort, Jay Fuller, Brandon Salinas, Andy Schwalenberg, Jonathan Delange
Art: Elben Schafers, Ryan Powell, Luis Ramierez, Chris Voellmann, Chuck Crist, Sean Horton, Teague Schultz, Matt Manchester, Quinn Smith
Engineering: Aaron Walker, Alex Quinones, Andy Hanson, Eric Rehmeyer, Frank Maddin, Jesse Spears, Jim Gage, Rhys Lewis, Ryan Cornelius
Animation: Vince Joly, Derek Bonikowski, Dax Pallotta, Stephen Zafros, William Bate, Raphiel Perkins, Carlos Mendieta
Audio: Scott Petersen, Frank Bry
Operations: Al Artis, Ethan Mcdonald, Faith Casper, Kelly Prinz Johnson, George Thomas

If you carefully compare the credits between each game, there were several additions and subtractions to the team between each game. All of the talent coming and going to and from Retro these days has happened since the studio was created. It is just much more under the microscope now. The majority of the names Emily listed departed long before DKCR shipped. And you know what? It was still a hell of a game. Maybe she knows something we don't. Maybe there is serious trouble at Retro. But making a big list of names of people long gone from the company as evidence was pretty bogus. But this simple research I presented (that anyone could have done) kind of debunks what she said about Retro being a shadow of it's former self.

[Emily Rogers]

You say Retro is a shell of their former self yet you fail to mention they still have a good foundation of roughly 25% of the original Prime team, almost half of the team from Echoes, and almost 75% of the team that worked on Corruption.

First of all, most would say Metroid Prime 1 was Retro's best Metroid Prime game. Metroid Prime 1 received a 9.8 on IGN while IGN gave both Metroid Prime 2 and Metroid Prime 3 a 9.5.

To say that only 25% of the team that made the best Prime in the trilogy (Metroid Prime 1) and only 50% of Metroid Prime 2 team are still around doesn't build much confidence about Retro's core team right now.

The 25 percent of the MP3 team that left were the biggest contributors to the game's development.

And the fact still remains that 2 out of 3 of Donkey Kong Country Return's lead designers (one of them who was in charge of level design) are gone.

Secondly, you're focusing too much on how many left, and not enough on who left. Majority of the people with the most responsibility over the Prime games are gone. That's the sad news. A huge amount of key guys responsible for the high quality in Retro's games are gone.

Thirdly, I'm not painting a gloom and doom scenario. I'm saying that Retro's Wii U game hit a few bumps along the road because they've been busy recruiting new employees, filling up empty positions, promoting lower level employees to higher positions, and restructuring the company.

Not saying that Retro's next game will suck. I'm saying the core of Retro's talent is deteriorating. Edit: But it's also in the process of rebuilding. Nintendo has enough talent to improve any studio's game.

When Nintendo is supervising any project, most likely it will NOT suck. Example: Eternal Darkness from Silicon Knights.

[Poochy]

Thirdly, I'm not painting a gloom and doom scenario. I'm saying that Retro's Wii U game hit a few bumps along the road because they've been busy recruiting new employees, filling up empty positions, promoting lower level employees to higher levels, and restructuring the company.

Not saying that Retro's next game will suck. I'm saying the core of Retro's talent is deteriorating. Nintendo has enough talent to improve any studio's game.

Do you know anything about the scope and size of the project that they are working on for Wii U? One of the rumors I heard at NeoGAF is that Nintendo has already poured billions into the game, and is one of the most ambitious titles Nintendo has ever worked on, which to me suggests that it is much more than just a DKCR sequel or Metroid Prime 4, but a much larger project (like a new Zelda game, or even the supposed Starfox/Metroid mashup).

[Emily Rogers]

I believe it is ambitious just based on the fact that they've been hiring new people like crazy. New engineers. New game designers. New artists. Every position you can imagine, they've been hiring for in the last year if you've paid attention to job postings.

I think it depends on how you want to define ambitious. Metroid Prime and DKCR had decent sized budgets and decent sized teams. I don't know how much their spending on Retro's Wii U game so I won't attach any budget price tag on it. But I can't imagine it being cheap.

[Poochy]

I believe it is ambitious just based on the fact that they've been hiring new people like crazy. New engineers. New game designers. New artists. Every position you can imagine, they've been hiring for in the last year if you've paid attention to job postings.

I think it depends on how you want to define ambitious. Metroid Prime and DKCR had decent sized budgets and decent sized teams. I don't know how much their spending on Retro's Wii U game so I won't attach any budget price tag on it. But I can't imagine it being cheap.

Well if that's the case, I can't imagine Nintendo investing that much in a new IP. It may very well be a Zelda or a Mario game.

[ridleyscott]

All those people either left/are leaving or they didn't. I mean, is it really a rumor?

They probably don't like the fact that they are having to work on Nintendo's established franchises. I don't see why they would be pissed about Prime 4, we have enough Metroid Prime as it is. 2 and 3 weren't all that great to begin with - they were total gimmicks. They were good games though, better than most - I own the trilogy for wii.

They lost the entire team it looks like over the years... stupid. That is just poor management. You can't just rope a few employees and force them to do your dirty work and expect them to stick around. I'm sure they have their own ideas that they want to pursue. They probably sit around the office thinking and coming-up with ideas just for Nintendo to say "No!" "you are going to make Donkey Kong." Then they are like "Donkey Kong sucks" "We want to make a more serious indepth action/adventure game". "No, you are going to make Dr. Mario."

Edit: Nintendo may be sending people to Austin because it is a highly regarded Nintendo Franchise like Zelda. Miyamoto said that if Retro worked on Zelda he may have to go there often or move there.

[LegendofSantiago]

@Poochy I'm pretty sure its neither of those

[thorn-rock]

I thought the fact that some of the main guys behind MP team left was common knowledge. In fact there has been some information and articles about this at that time.

DKCR is still an awesome game. People move from a team to another. That's how it works and I don't see what is shocking there.

As for the development of the game being rocky. Well yes of course it is. A development on new hardware that changes constantly, and probably with a Nintendo licence which means they are always looking at what you do. I can imagine that being difficult. That being said it's a good thing Nintendo is so touchy when it comes to their own licences. It's one of the things that made Minish Cap or Metroid Prime the games they are.

True story: do you know an employee from the Mario 64 team left video-game development right after the end of the development cycle? He said he couldn't take anymore. There was an awesome article about how "rocky" and incredibly hard the development of this game was. A game developed in similar conditions.

[Rezbit]

You say Retro is a shell of their former self yet you fail to mention they still have a good foundation of roughly 25% of the original Prime team, almost half of the team from Echoes, and almost 75% of the team that worked on Corruption.

First of all, most would say Metroid Prime 1 was Retro's best Metroid Prime game. Metroid Prime 1 received a 9.8 on IGN while IGN gave both Metroid Prime 2 and Metroid Prime 3 a 9.5.

To say that only 25% of the team that made the best Prime in the trilogy (Metroid Prime 1) and only 50% of Metroid Prime 2 team are still around doesn't build much confidence about Retro's core team right now.

The 25 percent of the MP3 team that left were the biggest contributors to the game's development.



And the fact still remains that 2 out of 3 of Donkey Kong Country Return's lead designers (one of them who was in charge of level design) are gone.

Secondly, you're focusing too much on how many left, and not enough on who left. Majority of the people with the most responsibility over the Prime games are gone. That's the sad news. A huge amount of key guys responsible for the high quality in Retro's games are gone.

Thirdly, I'm not painting a gloom and doom scenario. I'm saying that Retro's Wii U game hit a few bumps along the road because they've been busy recruiting new employees, filling up empty positions, promoting lower level employees to higher positions, and restructuring the company.

Not saying that Retro's next game will suck. I'm saying the core of Retro's talent is deteriorating. Edit: But it's also in the process of rebuilding. Nintendo has enough talent to improve any studio's game.

When Nintendo is supervising any project, most likely it will NOT suck. Example: Eternal Darkness from Silicon Knights.

I'm not denying important people left. But it doesn't mean the "lesser" (if you could call them that) people that are still there aren't important. Most of the 25% that are still there are the leaders of Retro now (compare the MP1 credits to the credits for DKCR). And they were able to pull off DKCR. No, it's not Metroid Prime, which is at the top of many best of all time lists, but I have seen many people mention DKCR not only being better than EAD's NSMBWii, but being among their favorite platformers of all time. And this was done by a studio with no experience making platformers. It was done with the, as you say, "lesser" people who weren't as important to Metroid Prime as Pacini, Keller, and Matthews.

I agree, it is a big blow to lose Wikan and Pearson. Oh, but Pearson didn't work on Metroid Prime 1... So he's not important right? I agree that it's sad that they are losing so many people... But why bring it up now? Pacini, Keller, and Matthews left ages ago, and it has been a very long time since Wikan and Pearson left.

I actually do believe you though about some development trouble happening. They are working on new hardware, and it takes more resources to make and HD game. People are coming and going from the company. Half of their staff was working on Mario Kart for a year. But f you researched the history of the development of Retro's main games, all four of them faced development troubles. And every one of them still ended up being awesome... I don't see why that would change when it seems as what has become the normal process of things occouring at Retro Studios.

[Emily Rogers]

You say Retro is a shell of their former self yet you fail to mention they still have a good foundation of roughly 25% of the original Prime team, almost half of the team from Echoes, and almost 75% of the team that worked on Corruption.

First of all, most would say Metroid Prime 1 was Retro's best Metroid Prime game. Metroid Prime 1 received a 9.8 on IGN while IGN gave both Metroid Prime 2 and Metroid Prime 3 a 9.5.

To say that only 25% of the team that made the best Prime in the trilogy (Metroid Prime 1) and only 50% of Metroid Prime 2 team are still around doesn't build much confidence about Retro's core team right now.

The 25 percent of the MP3 team that left were the biggest contributors to the game's development.



And the fact still remains that 2 out of 3 of Donkey Kong Country Return's lead designers (one of them who was in charge of level design) are gone.

Secondly, you're focusing too much on how many left, and not enough on who left. Majority of the people with the most responsibility over the Prime games are gone. That's the sad news. A huge amount of key guys responsible for the high quality in Retro's games are gone.

Thirdly, I'm not painting a gloom and doom scenario. I'm saying that Retro's Wii U game hit a few bumps along the road because they've been busy recruiting new employees, filling up empty positions, promoting lower level employees to higher positions, and restructuring the company.

Not saying that Retro's next game will suck. I'm saying the core of Retro's talent is deteriorating. Edit: But it's also in the process of rebuilding. Nintendo has enough talent to improve any studio's game.

When Nintendo is supervising any project, most likely it will NOT suck. Example: Eternal Darkness from Silicon Knights.

I'm not denying important people left. But it doesn't mean the "lesser" (if you could call them that) people that are still there aren't important. Most of the 25% that are still there are the leaders of Retro now (compare the MP1 credits to the credits for DKCR). And they were able to pull off DKCR. No, it's not Metroid Prime, which is at the top of many best of all time lists, but I have seen many people mention DKCR not only being better than EAD's NSMBWii, but being among their favorite platformers of all time. And this was done by a studio with no experience making platformers. It was done with the, as you say, "lesser" people who weren't as important to Metroid Prime as Pacini, Keller, and Matthews.

I agree, it is a big blow to lose Wikan and Pearson. Oh, but Pearson didn't work on Metroid Prime 1... So he's not important right? I agree that it's sad that they are losing so many people... But why bring it up now? Pacini, Keller, and Matthews left ages ago, and it has been a very long time since Wikan and Pearson left.

I actually do believe you though about some development trouble happening. They are working on new hardware, and it takes more resources to make and HD game. People are coming and going from the company. Half of their staff was working on Mario Kart for a year. But f you researched the history of the development of Retro's main games, all four of them faced development troubles. And every one of them still ended up being awesome... I don't see why that would change when it seems as what has become the normal process of things occouring at Retro Studios.

As far as Pearson goes, I actually mentioned in the article that it was a huge blow to lose him because he was in charge of level design on the game. And I believe it was creative level design that made Donkey Kong Country Returns superior to New Super Mario Bros Wii.

Perhaps I could have worded certain things in my article differently, but I stand by the fact that Retro is a very different company right now. Whether that's for good or worse, we'll find out when their game comes out on Wii U. Retro could very well end up being a better company than they were during their Prime/DKCR days. I don't think Retro is capable of putting out anything bad with Nintendo's supervision and funding. Especially since Retro is a first party.

And as you said, many companies have put out brilliant games while going through development hell.

As you said, new consoles are when a developer gets hit with massive problems. Retro is busy recruiting new people while also teaching them to make full use of the Wii U hardware. They are also jumping from Wii hardware to a console that is 10x or more powerful (Wii U) which means a huge increase in assets, resources, and costs being poured into the game.

Right now, I know that Nintendo and Retro are playing puppeteers. They are recruiting new staff, training new staff, and developing a Wii U game all at the same time. And that's causing frustrations/headaches for them. I've heard about this for awhile.