NOE Launches Metroid Hub… That’s It?

As everyone knows, it’s The Legend of Zelda’s 25th Anniversary, but they aren’t the only popular Nintendo game franchise celebrating their silver anniversary this year. While The Legend of Zelda was released for the first time back in 1986, so was Metroid. Both Mario and Zelda have received a lot of hype for their 25th birthdays, but not a peep has been heard from Nintendo about Samus.

While we haven’t heard anything from Nintendo of Japan or Nintendo of America, Nintendo of Europe launched an official Metroid Hub, which links to information about individual games in the series.

The Hub is nothing more than a directory of where vistors can go to purchase Metroid titles. Furthermore, it was launched by the NoE, which makes it hard to say if Nintendo HQ has any additional plans, or plans at all for that matter.

The year is already halfway over, but there’s hardly been any Metroid news at all, let alone celebratory news. So far this year, we’ve heard rumors that the franchsise was going to be put on the shelf, only to have these rumors refuted by hints of a Metroid Wii U coming sometime in the future. We’ll get another Metroid game, but don’t expect to to be a launch title. Despite the success of Metroid Prime, maybe Nintendo judged Other M‘s reception too harshly, or maybe Nintendo doesn’t think Metroid is popular enough to warrant a 25th anniversary celebration.

Myself and others at ZI are big Metroid fans, so this is more than a bit disappointing. If Nintendo isn’t making a move because they don’t think Samus is mainstream enough, I don’t see why promoting some of her older adventures could hurt them. Clearly, that’s what NoE is doing, but it’s not enough coming from just them. Come on Nintendo show Samus and her fans some love. Hype her up, and add a few Metroid-themed items to the rewards at Club Nintendo.

Readers, if Nintendo had actually acknowledged Metroid with a birthday party this year, what would have liked to seen?