Sakamoto discusses the research that went into a potential 2D Metroid game on DS.
In an interview with Joystiq, Nintendo's Yoshio Sakamoto states that Nintendo has looked into putting a 2D Metroid game on the DS, stating that he can't say the idea for the game never existed. The rumored game, which was coyly mentioned briefly in 2007's Metroid Prime 3: Corruption on a computer terminal, was meant to be a full-blown 2D Metroid game on the Nintendo DS, in the same style as Super Metroid. These rumors have been circulating since around 2005.
In the interview, Sakamoto states, "While there actually was a point where some teams were meeting to discuss if it was possible to create a 2D Metroid for DS using a relatively small team size, it's not something that we ever really announced or thought of as 'Metroid Dread'. But whenever people bring out that idea, we recognize that the basic concept is something that we can't say never existed. But at the same time, we can't of course, make any official comment about a Metroid Dread-like project coming out."
Later Sakamoto added, " Our main goal [with Metroid: Other M] is to, as I said earlier, first raise knowledge about the Metroid universe and the Samus character before we start to introduce different elements like online or even going back to another handheld game for the next in the series. So there's nothing coming immediately, we want to think about these new challenges first."
The last handheld entry in the series was 2006's Metroid Prime Hunters, a title that was significantly altered in style compared to the other Metroid games in the series. Samus made two appearances on Game Boy Advance in 2001's Metroid Fusion and 2004's Metroid: Zero Mission.