IGN.com interviewed Mark Pacini (Retro Studios director) and Kensuke Tanabe (Nintendo Software Planning Division manager of Production Group No. 3). In the interview, Tanabe confirms that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption will arrive at the Wii launch; however, as a result, it will lack an online component. Check out an excerpt of the juicy pieces below and the full interview here.
IGN Wii: In Prime 3, do you lose your abilities and have to retrieve them throughout the game?
Mark Pacini: No.
Bryan Walker: We did that for two games in a row. We didn't want to do it again. [Laughs]
IGN Wii: Will you need to have the Wii sensor bar to play Prime 3?
Kensuke Tanabe: Yes.
IGN Wii: We really love Prime 3, as you may have noticed from our initial impressions. That said, we ran into problems when trying to perform quick 180 turns in the game, which is, of course, something that we naturally want to do in a first-person title. Have you thought about this? Is this something you might address before the game's release?
Kensuke Tanabe: The reason why we implemented both normal and expert sensitivities into the demo is that we would like the non-core gamer to play the game comfortably and at the same time we would like the expert player to play the game very freely. It's nice to be able to hear your comment at this point so now we can start thinking more about implementing a quick turn.
IGN Wii: Will Metroid Prime 3 feature an online mode?
Kensuke Tanabe: No, we have only single-player. I have also produced Prime Hunters and for that game I tried to use the Wi-Fi Connection for multiplayer. For Prime 3, I would like to concentrate more on the single-player so I decided not to implement multiplayer for Prime 3. As you know, Wii will have Connect 24, so we are thinking more about the possibility of using that functionality so that the player can get something.
IGN Wii: Downloadable levels or maybe different suits?
Kensuke Tanabe: Yeah, maybe. But, this is just an idea, maybe we could send an e-mail or something depending upon how far a player progresses into the game.