[Correction posted approximately 18 hours after video upload]: at timestamp 25:28-25:30, there's an error: "They're still about 50 people today." According to LinkedIn, Retro Studios identify themselves as having between 51-200 employees, including non-devs like accountants, etc. Also on LinkedIn, 195 people currently identify themselves as Retro employees in their bios (as of November 5, 2023). Unsure if those bios are all up-to-date, but regardless the current headcount definitely appears to be more than 50. Apologies. This video was very thoroughly researched, fact-checked, and proofread (including by two ex-Retro devs) -- over the course of about 2 years in total -- but this error still slipped through. If it was a written article we would've already edited in a correction, but unfortunately we can't do that on RUclips. Again, sincere apologies for the mistake.
You’re such legends, guys! Your work is inspiring af, thanks for putting this well researched and amazingly produced piece. You’re by miles the best at this. Please keep it going
The whole timing of this video couldn't have been any more unique, cause Masahiro Sakurai just 2 days ago on his RUclips channel uploaded a video where he said how you shouldn't pitch a game to your execs and say "its like this other game" and most people agree that is more of a Japanese mentality and even more so a Nintendo mentality, cause they don't want to "lose their faces" by having to look at other peoples work to get ideas for their own games. In this video, the Retro dev who made the prototype for the Portal-like game talks how he bought a copy of Portal to explain to Nintendo what his game is gonna be like and Nintendo refused to look at it and didn't know what Portal was, for the exact same reasons Sakurai explained in his video. Both stories from two completely unrelated videos matched perfectly, beautiful.
I’d also suggest a second reason why inviting comparisons is a bad idea - if the pitch for Armature is just “Portal”, why wouldn’t someone just play Portal? Obviously games can have inspirations, but in pitches try to make them feel unique to them.
This is true, but at the same time it's absolutely insane for Nintendo JP to be so pridefully-insular as to not even play masterpieces made in the West.
Honestly looking at this video this story just kind of makes me wonder how the hell Retro is still even alive and how the games they have released are as good as they are.
Because they're a Nintendo internal studio. (100% ownership) Nintendo can afford to hire top talent for their studios; producers from Japan can micromanage them if need be as well If they weren't owned by Nintendo, they would have likely gone bankrupt before Metroid Prime even released.
They were a talented group of devs before Nintendo ever touched them. Nintendo just was mainly money and top management. The devs are likely able to make top notch quality regardless who controls them, but they wouldn't have stayed alive without Nintendo's money which could have been anyone's money. Which also *created* their frivolous spending problem.
The way I see it, they're Nintendo's western playground where they expect one or two attempts to get things right. Nintendo isn't terribly afraid of failure, they wouldn't be so audacious if they were.
@@zaneseibertRare was run like a tight ship under the Stamper brothers during their time working with Nintendo. It wasn't a perfect operation, and there was a lot of crunch - but many of devs WANTED to crunch to make their games the best they could be, AND they were entitled to profit sharing just like the early Retro days. Rare had multiple teams working on games at once, and they'd actually compete to one-up each other. While Retro had to cancel four of their games, Rare was prolific and successful on the Nintendo 64. I would not compare Retro to Rare at all, except to say that if Retro was meant to be the "American Rareware" they failed pretty badly at it.
DYKG slowly transforming into the best investigative journalism in gaming is something I never would've guessed when I first watched their "fun facts" type videos all those years ago, but I could not be more proud of how far y'all have come.
The funniest part about Jeff Spangenberg is that he went on to found one more studio after Retro called Topheavy, and they only developed one game: The Guy Game. That game was always so bizarre to me, but it all makes sense now.
I didn't know he was behind that dreadful venture, and now that I do... think I'm just a bit sad for his sake. Like yeah, if I had that on my conscience I too would leave videogames forever and hope time could heal the wounds I left behind.
Crazy to think that the development of Metroid Prime isn't just a down the rabbit hole story on making the game. But instead the entire history of the studio behind it.
I tend to think people tend to think of cancelled projects with too much rose-tinted glasses, sometimes. the idea of something they didn't get will always make someone's brain imagine the best product out of a nebulous concept, but sometimes one has to remember that sometimes projects get cancelled for good reasons. Project X is one of the best examples of "Not all cancellations are bad" cause clearly it was something that would have been awful but lack of knowledge on the subject allowed people to imagine something better than it could have ever been. Yes, sometimes cancellations suck, and games that could have been great get chopped before they can get a chance, but sometimes people need to remember that when Nintendo would tell Retro that their work would be better elsewhere, it wasn't out of simply wanting to get them down. More like a stern parent: They are not ALWAYS right, and can come off as rude, but they do have good intentions in mind.
Exactly. Thank you for saying this. A lot of people don’t understand that “the suits” aren’t just morons who hate fun. They oftentimes are the ones shaping a bunch of nebulous and incongruous ideas into something that can actually exist.
The thing is those projects are often cancelled too early to the point where if they continued development they would have transformed into something better.
DYKG just keeps on giving with their videos. Love how they always strive to be in the frontlines of discovering new information for not just their fans, but for gaming as a whole. Especially after hearing what happened to that Zelda video. They've come a long way from just fun game trivia. Please don't stop what you're doing DYKG!
Before this video I never realized how difficult must be working for Nintendo, the relationship must be hard knowing the cultural differences between a western studio and a japanese company.
Hearing the guy trying to explain Twisted Metal to Miyamoto got me cringing a bit, because well...yeah, that's our 'Murican culture for ya. Don't need to explain to it us, but to others, yeah. and he couldn't even say "Its car combat like Mario Kart!" because then Miyamoto would say "...but we already have Mario Kart."
While that's true, I think it's ultimately a compliment for Retro. That Nintendo would break internal company protocol and go out of their way to invest as much as they have into an otherwise obscure independent American studio. And the results speak for themselves.
To be fair, things have improved at Nintendo in that regard over the past couple decades. Reggie actually played a big part in increasing communication between regions and breaking down some of Nintendo's more traditional ways of business. Something evidenced in them taking Prime 4 away from a Japanese developer that they have very close ties to, and giving it back to Retro.
It’s really not that hard, all you need to do is articulate your vision without making references to things each side wouldn’t understand. In regards to Portal for example, instead of going ‘play this game, that’s what we want to make!” They should’ve explained their core vision then at the end add, ‘many studios across the globe have found great success in making this type of game, a great example would be Valve’s Portal’. This should just be a statistic, not the entire FKN pitch. It’s one of the most fundamental aspects of business, the concept of understandability, where you make sure absolutely anyone regardless of age, culture, education etc can perfectly understand what you want to achieve.
Really appreciate the DYKG team. These videos are incredibly interesting, and has a deeper dive behind the scenes and closed doors of the gaming industry that very few have the ability to see.
@@lalehiandeity1649 That and it's also not a direct quote from anybody, but more speculation and is being relayed by a guy who quit Metroid Prime development VERY early on, so it's hard to know how accurate it really is.
Forgotten Land is the best-selling Kirby game at 6.5 mil as of this comment, but Dream Land did 5.1 mil, Super Star Ultra did 3 mil, Star Allies did 4.4 mil... it's true that most Kirby games hover around 1.5 mil in sales, but it's had bigger hits in the past. @@cicjose6016
My understanding was Miyamoto actually cared a lot about making Metroid a success, because it was a game created by his recently deceased mentor. This video goes into detail about his direct involvement with the first Prime.
The story of Retro sounds like of many studios that died years ago after making a franchise killing game, yet they are still here, making some of the best exclusive Nintendo games out there.
Retro is a nintendo owned studio which means that they will not die unless nintendo wants them to die as long as nintendo pays the bills they will keep chuging along releasing a new game every blue moon (but that game wil be of the highest quality posible)
15:36 - 18:42 The fact that we would've gotten Mario Kick-off Football during the GameCube era is a bit mind-boggling! I remember telling a friend that if Nintendo ever made a Mario Football game, then it would've been really fun and probably would've sold really well here in the west! I can't begin to tell you how much people loved Mario Sport games even if they're not the biggest sports fan!
Crazy cause Mario Sports game peaked during the GCN era. Nintendo continued the Tennis/Golf series with Camelot and created 2 new sports series in that era with Baseball with Namco and Strikers/Soccer with Next Level Games. Could you imagine if we got American Football with Retro Studios. Would've been nuts.
I remember it too but it was in a tv show called GT Game Trailers, a small tv show in my country not associated with the real GT, and it was briefly mentioned in the last year of the GC lifespam
I think that was GCN magazine. I had that exact tape, and watched it repeatedly. I didn't have internet then, so the GameCube info blowout was incredible.
That’s why it is so annoying when people complain about the cost of games from people like Nintendo. You are not just paying for the game, you are also paying for all of the product that doesn’t ship. They mine a lot of rock before they hit gold, and all of that work has to be paid for.
@@CometX-ing that’s what is called “research and development”. Nothing was “arbitrarily cancelled”. They were cancelled because Nintendo didn’t believe in their viability. People always ask how “Nintendo’s games are always so high quality?” It’s because they cancel what isn’t. As an old design teacher I used to have always said, “it’s not practice that makes perfect, it’s process that makes perfect”. You don’t just get to a point where everything you do is perfect, but people think that because they don’t see everything you throw away as part of your process.
@@lalehiandeity1649Yeah. I find that so weird. It might be possible they worked on alot of projects or helped out other studios during that time. Good chance that Retro is mostly for testing new game ideas and helping out with other games.
My father has told me the same story a lot of times, from when he was in Japan, and wanted to give a book to the friend he was staying with. His friend said "Do not wrap it. Pretend it's your own book and that you accidentally left it here." I think there's a cultural taboo of Japanese people accepting gifts when they will be unable/not have time to reciprocate.
It's because in Japanese culture gift giving requires reciprocation or status befitting the gift. And part of the act of reciprocation is refusing the gift several times. When accepting a gift it's socially important to show the same respect when receiving the gift as was shown giving it. The Japanese have very little religious influence in their culture so the replace it with reciprocity and a keen awareness of social status.
As someone who has received gifts from a Japanese person before, they tell you at least in my experience first hand that they will give you something because you just don't just give an item straight away as it is too sudden.
Yeah, my main concern is that Portal was successful and beloved for its elegant simplicity. 'Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out'. But Adept had at least five different kinds of cylinders, and no cap on how many you could make, along with the added complexities of combat. Just from the pitch alone, it seems like it'd be very clunky, and I'm not sure the mechanics would blend well at all with the snap-decision-making that combat necessitates.
@@Skelatox As pitched, yeah. It seems pretty clunky. If it was more refined maybe for sure could work. Splitgate's a pretty fun mix of Portal and Halo, so never know. it prob needed more time in the oven or even just more brains smacking against the blueprints to flesh out som'in that'd really work well with the formula.
@@KitoBallardAnd the fact that a great number of people were familiar with portals as a game mechanic, an iteration would be easier to teach and for the player to master, making it a lot more accesible. Truly a shame. Maybe an indie dev could make something like that.
@@Skelatox I agree, it would have been too clunky by comparison and had it come out, it 100% would have just gone down in history as "that weird Nintendo Portal clone that's worse than Portal". Taking Portal and arbitrarily slapping on combat and a handful of other mechanics doesn't make it better.
I think if Adept focused on the push/wind cylinders, it would've been approved. All those mechanics make the game seem more complicated and may be hard to balance into a concise experience that utilizes all of them equally. Plus, Nintendo loves easy-to-learn, hard-to-master stuff! Wind on it's own seems versatile enough to keep a game interesting, and could make combat, puzzles and platforming really interesting!
I think learning that the Retro Studios Zelda was going to be dogshit in terms of gameplay was the funniest thing I've learned. It's kind of like Mighty No. 9 where they share concept art and people think the game is going to be amazing then the actual game is out and it's terrible.
The PS2 was already the clear victor before it was even released. It's hype was insane, coming off the PS1, while Nintendo had an uphill battle from the sparse final years of the N64. However, I have no doubt it's sales would have been a lot closer if Nintendo had just included DVD playback. That sounds really silly today but the PS2's DVD playback was a huge selling point at the time.
Nintendo being difficult to work with for third parties probably screwed them in that gen and the previous, they should have used CD's with N64 and dvd's with Gamecube, and been accommodating to all third parties like they were with SNES somewhat. They shouldn't have driven away third party games, such as SquareSoft and even that car combat game. Nowadays they embrace being impossible for third parties, now their focus is to just psyop their fans with their marketing, their nostalgia/fandom baiting, and their shallow gimmicks, whether it was the Wii and its motion controls and mass non-gamer market appeal, or Switch's portability and stagnant, innovationless, nostalgia-baiting games, though that's probably too based for normie Nintendo bandwagon riders.
@@davetheimpaler204yes and no. You’re right that the hype was insane for PS2. But there was an immediate pushback becuase the ps2 has an EXTREMELY weak launch library and about an entire year with no decent game releases. All the magazines at the time were releasing articles saying things like “Where are the games?!?”. This is part of what allowed MS to even have any kind of shot with Xbox. If GC had come out stronger, it really could have competed against ps2. But I’m talking if it were basically an entirely different machine.
Yeah after 2001 or 2002, there was no way to have overtaken PS2. It was the cheapest, had the biggest library, had built in DVD and CD playback, and launched before GameCube and XBOX. It's only real competition could have been Dreamcast if SEGA could have afforded to put a DVD drive in it and hadn't burned American fans, and the XBOX with its online capabilities [but which couldn't have caught up with its launch price being identical to that of the PS2 2 years after the PS2 launched]
@@AICW True. I never knew about the car he overpaid for to spite John Carmack. It seems wherever Spangenberg went, controversy followed him culminating with "The Guy Game".
I don't know how any of you managed to research this deep but I'm more than thankful that you were able to uncover all of these amazing things and put them to the public to see. Thanks DYKG for all the effort and awesome content. Also, a Portal-like game in the Wii using the MP3 engine would have been super interesting to play!
i really appreciate the brackets in the titles for when information is researched specifically for the video. helps lower repetition and find really interesting videos
Raven Blade is one of those I've always wanted to see make a comeback, it would be really cool to see a Retro-developed action RPG overseen and tweaked by Nintendo- Nintendo polish and Japanese design concepts, combined with a gothic western RPG style, sounds rad Also it's hilarious that universal-manipulator and master of spacetime John Carmack was slightly involved in the game's death
with the recent Sakurai video about game pitches and not referencing an existing game as an example, im surprised to hear both sides of the example come up in this. the one that boggles me though is the combat car game where Miyamoto was confused on a fun concept, despite the later comparison to Mario Kart basically having that same set up, but then those other employees saying it should have been compared to Mario Kart would have gotten the projected canned right away with a probable response of "if its like Mario Kart, then why wouldnt people just play Mario Kart?"
@JJAB91 honestly he and more he's the game equivalent to butch Hartman Sure he could have interesting concepts but most are just actions basically any child of the region did Such as playing with a stick or messing with bugs
i find it amazing how you manage to get all these interviews, even with NOA guys you're doing an awesome job guys, easily my favourite "gaming history channel" :)
I really must thank you for bringing to life for the first time the handful of images of these games I drooled over during the gamecube era, Raven Blade in particular. I always wondered how so many games of varying styles that looked so promising got cancelled, and now it all makes sense. Thanks a million for all the hard work and not being bullied by these bullshit lawsuits!
If anyone wants to play the Sheik prototype, buy Sonic Frontiers and get to the wolf guardian. Its exactly as described and just as boring as you imagine
It's easy to blame Nintendo for a load of these, but the stuff mentioned about the dysfunction of early Retro makes me think they were probably smart to doubt their ability to cross the finish line.
Creating a studio named iguana and then out of spite wanting your new studio to be called mongoose cause they kill iguanas is one hell of a flex 😂 that's something that 100 percent would've been a thing nowadays
One part of me wonders (and maybe wishes) if Adept would've ended up being a Metroid Prime spinoff of some sort. Or hell, maybe some of the abilities you would've wielded would end up in a Prime game as utility weapons.
I don’t know. When they were explaining it, I was like “ that sounds way to complicated for Nintendo to touch with a ten foot pole”. Anything that has words like “ as many as you want” sounds good to western design sensibilities and poisonous to Japanese design sensibilities. We have a “all-you-can-eat, big gulp, extra value meal, sense of design that wants MORE and Japan has a bonsai tree design sensibility that is always asking what you can cut and simplify.
@@JazGalaxynah thats just nintendo, i mean in japan you have stuff like the shin megami tensei and the persona series who is like three games in a trench coat
It seems Nintendo is more hyper traditional than even other Japanese game companies. They are really old after all, older than the invention of digital computers.
@@JazGalaxy Exactly my concern. Portal was beloved for its simplicity. Imagine it with six different portals you can create, no cap on how many you can have at a time, and fast-paced combat. That version of Portal would have been a mess, and not nearly as successful.
less than 50 employees when once were like 200, damn, now i see why metroid is taking so long aside for the restart of the whole project. EDIT: Heard this was corrected! so, never mind!
Imteresting as it looks, I don't Adept would have taken off as a direct competitor to Portal. Honestly, it seems like Retro missed the whole point of Portal when they decided to make 'Portal with weapons'. To me part of the point of Portal IS that you have no weapons, other that the Portal Gun, the game works so well BECAUSE you have no weapons, it forces you to use your brain and solve puzzles with the portals, rather than giving you a hundred different options (such as teleportation, super jump, magmetism, or combat) that combine to make it too easy.
If I had a nickel for every almost-completed, licensed sports game by Nintendo on the GameCube that got cancelled, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice! (For context: Nintendo also put together an MLB game, Nintendo Pennant Chase, that got canned after 2K agreed to bring the MLB 2K series to GameCube)
Based on all this, it's not doubt the amount of talent they had at the time, but it is also true that they worked at their best when they had some clear direction, like when Miyamoto "suggested" for then to work on Metroid or their President straight up say they had to work on DKC returns. Not saying they had bad ideas, but a lot miscommunication between then and Nintendo, plus how much can a concept look on paper but change over development.
TBH a lot of Retro's original concepts in this vid were not really that imaginative at all or perhaps were a bit too bizarre for Nintendo's tastes. Were the former devs' suggestions that Miyamoto only gave Metroid to Retro because it wasn't "his" series a bit petty? Yeah, but Miyamoto knew these western devs could handle Metroid better than them.(and you only have to look at Other M to see otherwise lol)
@@FunkyGhost37 Get this, before Other M's development, Sakamoto did not think too much about "what kind of person Samus Aran was and how she thinks and her personality", particularly because the games tried to depict Samus as a mysterious person. The reason Metroid does alot better in the West than in Japan, is because Metroid was inspired by the Alien series. Something Japan hasn't heard of.
What's bizarre to me about the Madden situation is that Nintendo could've taken that opportunity to push Retro's original design of making a more arcadey american football game involving their IPs, but I have a feeling the reason we still haven't seen a take on the sport with them is due to Japan's disconnection with it, and that probably expands to NoJ's execs to an even greater degree given they have a hard time even communicating with their overseas offices (also as this video highlights was probably much worse around the millennium).
I found it funny that to represent what Spangenberg is up to today, you put a photo of a cabin where a hermit would live, when I imagine him living in a Hugh Hefner-style playboy mansion.
23:24 THIS!!! I have been saying this since a long time ago, no doubt about the genius and the importance of Miyamoto to the industry, but if he feels that a franchise or a game has the slight potential to be more famous, he will just not give the care it deserves, it something that might explain why we dont have comebacks of great games,.
I think people don’t accept that miyamoto’s design philosophy is only to “say something” in the industry when there is something to say. That is, there is no reason to remake a game or franchise when there is nothing new to be done with it. Gamers complain about “why doesn’t x get a sequel?!” And the answer is often, “because the previous game didn’t sell well, so why would we just do the same thing again and expect a different result?”
JAzGalaxy put it the best. People that complained so much about F Zero not returning fail to realize their love for the series isn't directly proportional to its sales potential. FZero 99 having casual friendly elements like comeback mechanics is a calculated move for such an obvious reason.
23:21 Was it really Gunpei Yokoi's "baby"? I know it was developed with his team, but as far as I'm aware, Gunpei Yokoi didn't really have any involvement with the actual game itself. Hell, I heard a story of how he actually tried to *cancel* Super Metroid mid-development because he didn't like how slow the team was progressing. I don't think Metroid was created by one person alone.
What do you mean? Are you saying that all those ideas he cancelled were actually good ideas? He was totally right to pull the plug on those, they were boring, generic/derivative. We wouldn't have gotten Prime without his input. Not saying ALL his choices are correct, but dude knows what he's doing.
@@svenbtb The entire reason why Twilight Princess never got a sequel like OoT, WW or BOTW did is because of him. Hell, the entire reason BOTW even happened is because he went more hands off and let other people take charge. He is also the reason why StarFox is a dead IP and why F-Zero has been dead for 20 years.
@@JJAB91 Twilight Princess was never supposed to get a sequel, attempts to give TP a sequel were the dev team going way out of the original scope of the project BOTW happened because Skyward Sword bombed for a Zelda title, they needed a new direction or the franchise was toast F-Zero is dead because F-Zero GX did not sell over a million units, the anime got canned in the west, and F-Zero GP Legend and Climax bombed incredibly hard Star Fox initially died because Assault and Command underperformed. 64 3D tried to revive it but it only sold 1 million units. Then Zero bombed, making it die again
@@zynux8252 F-zero and Starfox are based of Arcade shooter and racing games, both were huge in the 90's. Not so much now a days, so evolving them in the HD era is difficult. The good news is that arcade shooters and racing games due exist in indie games.
So that's maybe one sale they'd have... Pretty sure they made the right choice, I doubt it would have even made enough money to recoup what they put into it.
Ive been saying for years now how it feels like Nintendo has some weird contempt for Retro even though they still do business with them, and this video really makes me wonder what it is Nintendo has against Retro
Nintendo's probably still a bit iffy after the early years with 4 cancelled games that could've really helped the Gamecube's launch, the disaster of Spangenberg and the shrinkdown to just 50 guys, and just the different philosophies of Western and Japanese game studios.
Spangenberg's story is kind of sad, actually... you can tell the man has talent and sounds like a great person to work with, but his vices still got the best of him. Good to hear he's still alive.
As soon as I saw 'Cancelled Nintendo Games from Retro Studios' in the title, the younger me who had a VHS back in like... 2002/2003 with a trailer for Raven Blade got super excited
Here’s what happened to spangenburg after he was cut from retro. Spangenburg made a new studio which made The Guy Game, a PS2/DVD game show game involving many women part of college spring break festivities at the time, answering questions with the consequence bejng that they flash their “assets”…… it gets worse…. cause it turns out one of the exposed women were underage as of the filming of her segment in the game…. This got spangenburg in legal trouble and got The Guy Game Banned.
Incredibly well researched and well done video. I was fairly familiar with the Retro story but this is the best video that really sums it up all nicely. It’s honestly a miracle Retro has finished anything, let alone my favorite game of all time alongside several other all time great games they’ve made. Makes the guesses on MP4s development so hard to gauge, it could be a shitshow but it could also be stunning beyond belief. I usually never pass an opportunity to pick on Mark Pacini and the other two lead devs that left with him but I do feel pretty bad hearing about the burnout and being escorted out.
Yeah retro seems like a studio with a lot of great ideas but is limited by a severe lack of focus as during metroid prime era they were firing on all cylinders but afterwards were struggling on what to do next until deciding to lazer focus on donkey kong but after donkey kong wrapped up hit another lull until the other metroid prime 4 project imploded leading to another moment where no objections, this is what were focusing on.
This was so interesting, I love seeing cancelled projects like this and what could have been. A Nintendo take on Twisted Metal would have been really fun to play. And for years I've wondered why Nintendo has has a Mario game for every sport exect Football. With all there other sports games, especially with how fun & Brutal the Strikers games were, a Mario Football games seems like a no brainer. Only thing I can think of is that as a Japanese company, they're just concerned how much appeal an American Football Game would have outside the western market.
I heard through the grapevine that the canceled game in Retro's "Silent Era" was a game where the main mechanic was singing and using songs to manipulate the environment and solve puzzles. You didn't hear it from me. 🤫
Does it have anything to do with the character that was hidden in the picture on Reggie Fils-Aimé's desk? That appeared to have a mechanical arm? Do you know why it was cancelled?
Damn, that Spangenberg fella sounds like a dude worth a move/documentary, alone. Sounds like the Joe Exotic of his field. Though beyond that, it's not hard to see why a lot of Retro's games got canned. Most just sound too derivative of other things, for Nintendo to truly be interested. Raven Blade's selling point was "Zelda but more mature", Car Combat was "Basically Twisted Metal, but on Nintendo" then tried to rebrand as "Edgy Mario Kart" when that wasn't working, & Adept is "Portal, but with WEAPONS!". The football game was mostly a casualty of circumstances, but Meta Force is the most distinct idea they produced at the time, & it's no surprise that's the one that held Nintendo's attention enough to become Metroid.
Amazing, historically relevant footage and information about video games that never saw the light of day! Can't wait for the Nintendo Lawyers to take this down
38:47 That reminds me, all Virtua Cop games and the similar games by Sega are basically just whack-a-mole. It's weird how many good games boil down to being basically games for children. Also, I noticed that World of Goo music before the gameplay popped up there. I am not mistaking it with anything.
Did you know my uncle was Vasken Sawyer he changed his last name because he didn't want to associate with his actual family. He comes from the weird part of my dad's family. He was I believe either senior or lead designer for Metroid prime. He sent me a copy a few months before it's release for my GameCube signed by the whole team at retro studios when he worked there. Way before that though, he worked on a lot of point-and-click games on the old DOS computers like King's quest and might and magic and showed me a tech demo he was making for the DS. He showed me all the Metroid prime prototype files. He worked on the levels. Samus and other characters. He does a little bit of programming. He's a monster but I was happy to see this game early in my childhood and a copy of blood rain signed by the whole team. It's too bad I never get to see my uncle. He's off developing framework for like Dell or some s***
It's really sad to see that all of Retro's original creations so far haven't been materialized into an actual game. Would be nice if someday they're able to keep working on Nintendo IPs that Nintendo would not work on themselves while outputting an original IP of their own from time to time, like how Rare used to do or how Monolith Soft kinda does nowadays
Dude, a car combat multiplayer game released near the launch of the console? I would have played the HELL out of that game! 90% of what I played on the Gamecube was multiplayer, and I was always down for another multiplayer game. And that first year of the GCN, I was so hard-up for a driving game that I bought Eighteen Wheeler Pro Trucker. Imagine how much happier I would have been if I could have put my money toward Retro's Car Combat.
I can't help but love Spangenburg. Maybe a little nuts, reckless, but smart and talented and tried to be good to his employees. Damn titties the bane of another great man lol (plus he likes Iguanas, which are awesome and I'm partial too lol)
I know it's only a matter of time, but I really want to know what Retro was working on after Tropical Freeze. It sounds like it was an original IP- which they've more than earned the chance to do. Everyone who hinted at being involved seemed to be really excited about it. I hope it comes to fruition one day.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
[Correction posted approximately 18 hours after video upload]: at timestamp 25:28-25:30, there's an error: "They're still about 50 people today." According to LinkedIn, Retro Studios identify themselves as having between 51-200 employees, including non-devs like accountants, etc. Also on LinkedIn, 195 people currently identify themselves as Retro employees in their bios (as of November 5, 2023). Unsure if those bios are all up-to-date, but regardless the current headcount definitely appears to be more than 50. Apologies. This video was very thoroughly researched, fact-checked, and proofread (including by two ex-Retro devs) -- over the course of about 2 years in total -- but this error still slipped through. If it was a written article we would've already edited in a correction, but unfortunately we can't do that on RUclips. Again, sincere apologies for the mistake.
You’re such legends, guys! Your work is inspiring af, thanks for putting this well researched and amazingly produced piece. You’re by miles the best at this. Please keep it going
Minor error
Please do a video on Twisted Metal trivia!!
No probs, love u
You forgot to mention that retro pitched a metroid 2 remake in 2004/2005
The whole timing of this video couldn't have been any more unique, cause Masahiro Sakurai just 2 days ago on his RUclips channel uploaded a video where he said how you shouldn't pitch a game to your execs and say "its like this other game" and most people agree that is more of a Japanese mentality and even more so a Nintendo mentality, cause they don't want to "lose their faces" by having to look at other peoples work to get ideas for their own games.
In this video, the Retro dev who made the prototype for the Portal-like game talks how he bought a copy of Portal to explain to Nintendo what his game is gonna be like and Nintendo refused to look at it and didn't know what Portal was, for the exact same reasons Sakurai explained in his video. Both stories from two completely unrelated videos matched perfectly, beautiful.
I’d also suggest a second reason why inviting comparisons is a bad idea - if the pitch for Armature is just “Portal”, why wouldn’t someone just play Portal?
Obviously games can have inspirations, but in pitches try to make them feel unique to them.
This is true, but at the same time it's absolutely insane for Nintendo JP to be so pridefully-insular as to not even play masterpieces made in the West.
@@snaxandsodaSee, that likely mostly, if not entirely, applies to the older, senior execs, not the lower level grunts.
This is so ironic considering all the western influences in the game design of Breath of the Wild, with Aonuma even name dropping Skyrim.
@@lucasLSD Nintendo isn’t above doing research when they need to. But they still put their own unique spins on many conventions.
This video took hundreds of hours of research to make. If you like what you see, please give it a like and show it to a friend. Cheers 👍
I enjoy watching your content.
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Well if you count the time it took to develop computers, software and youtube, it took billions of research hours.
You're awesome, guys.
This is the real work that makes this channel essential. Thank you guys.
Very interesting video! Austin isn’t in north TX btw, it’s in central TX.
Honestly looking at this video this story just kind of makes me wonder how the hell Retro is still even alive and how the games they have released are as good as they are.
Because they're a Nintendo internal studio. (100% ownership)
Nintendo can afford to hire top talent for their studios; producers from Japan can micromanage them if need be as well
If they weren't owned by Nintendo, they would have likely gone bankrupt before Metroid Prime even released.
They were a talented group of devs before Nintendo ever touched them. Nintendo just was mainly money and top management. The devs are likely able to make top notch quality regardless who controls them, but they wouldn't have stayed alive without Nintendo's money which could have been anyone's money. Which also *created* their frivolous spending problem.
Retro is like Rare's spiritual successor. A terribly run but very talented studio that survives because of sugardaddy Nintendo.
The way I see it, they're Nintendo's western playground where they expect one or two attempts to get things right. Nintendo isn't terribly afraid of failure, they wouldn't be so audacious if they were.
@@zaneseibertRare was run like a tight ship under the Stamper brothers during their time working with Nintendo. It wasn't a perfect operation, and there was a lot of crunch - but many of devs WANTED to crunch to make their games the best they could be, AND they were entitled to profit sharing just like the early Retro days. Rare had multiple teams working on games at once, and they'd actually compete to one-up each other. While Retro had to cancel four of their games, Rare was prolific and successful on the Nintendo 64. I would not compare Retro to Rare at all, except to say that if Retro was meant to be the "American Rareware" they failed pretty badly at it.
DYKG slowly transforming into the best investigative journalism in gaming is something I never would've guessed when I first watched their "fun facts" type videos all those years ago, but I could not be more proud of how far y'all have come.
The funniest part about Jeff Spangenberg is that he went on to found one more studio after Retro called Topheavy, and they only developed one game: The Guy Game. That game was always so bizarre to me, but it all makes sense now.
Wow I just do not understand people like that. At that point just go in to porn
@@Shadowlily1112Read Masters of Doom. The Id Software guys were Knee Deep in Strippers.
And then The Guy Game got pulled from shelves for being technically illegal to own due to... well, you'll have to look into it yourselves...
I didn't know he was behind that dreadful venture, and now that I do... think I'm just a bit sad for his sake. Like yeah, if I had that on my conscience I too would leave videogames forever and hope time could heal the wounds I left behind.
@@Shadowlily1112 he did. He failed miserably.
Crazy to think that the development of Metroid Prime isn't just a down the rabbit hole story on making the game. But instead the entire history of the studio behind it.
You always hear about Spangenbergs bad phase but I'd never heard it presented this way. Makes way more sense about how he got where he was this way.
I tend to think people tend to think of cancelled projects with too much rose-tinted glasses, sometimes. the idea of something they didn't get will always make someone's brain imagine the best product out of a nebulous concept, but sometimes one has to remember that sometimes projects get cancelled for good reasons. Project X is one of the best examples of "Not all cancellations are bad" cause clearly it was something that would have been awful but lack of knowledge on the subject allowed people to imagine something better than it could have ever been.
Yes, sometimes cancellations suck, and games that could have been great get chopped before they can get a chance, but sometimes people need to remember that when Nintendo would tell Retro that their work would be better elsewhere, it wasn't out of simply wanting to get them down. More like a stern parent: They are not ALWAYS right, and can come off as rude, but they do have good intentions in mind.
Exactly. Thank you for saying this. A lot of people don’t understand that “the suits” aren’t just morons who hate fun. They oftentimes are the ones shaping a bunch of nebulous and incongruous ideas into something that can actually exist.
Yeah suits get a bad rap. They make some bad decisions sometimes yes. But they more right decisions most of the time, or they're bankraupt.
Maybe "braindead Whack-a-Mole set in the Zelda universe" appealed to them somehow? Not to me, and unsurprisingly, not to the suits, either.
@@tgo007I think the bad reputation of ‘the suits’ stems mostly from Hollywood, where I feel it’s justified.
The thing is those projects are often cancelled too early to the point where if they continued development they would have transformed into something better.
DYKG just keeps on giving with their videos. Love how they always strive to be in the frontlines of discovering new information for not just their fans, but for gaming as a whole. Especially after hearing what happened to that Zelda video. They've come a long way from just fun game trivia. Please don't stop what you're doing DYKG!
What happened to the Zelda video?
I just saw it on this video... The Heroes of Hyrule...
Before this video I never realized how difficult must be working for Nintendo, the relationship must be hard knowing the cultural differences between a western studio and a japanese company.
Hearing the guy trying to explain Twisted Metal to Miyamoto got me cringing a bit, because well...yeah, that's our 'Murican culture for ya. Don't need to explain to it us, but to others, yeah.
and he couldn't even say "Its car combat like Mario Kart!" because then Miyamoto would say "...but we already have Mario Kart."
While that's true, I think it's ultimately a compliment for Retro. That Nintendo would break internal company protocol and go out of their way to invest as much as they have into an otherwise obscure independent American studio. And the results speak for themselves.
To be fair, things have improved at Nintendo in that regard over the past couple decades. Reggie actually played a big part in increasing communication between regions and breaking down some of Nintendo's more traditional ways of business. Something evidenced in them taking Prime 4 away from a Japanese developer that they have very close ties to, and giving it back to Retro.
It’s really not that hard, all you need to do is articulate your vision without making references to things each side wouldn’t understand.
In regards to Portal for example, instead of going ‘play this game, that’s what we want to make!” They should’ve explained their core vision then at the end add, ‘many studios across the globe have found great success in making this type of game, a great example would be Valve’s Portal’. This should just be a statistic, not the entire FKN pitch.
It’s one of the most fundamental aspects of business, the concept of understandability, where you make sure absolutely anyone regardless of age, culture, education etc can perfectly understand what you want to achieve.
More like old men clinging to their old ways ... Nintendo is so out of touch with their fans and society
Really appreciate the DYKG team. These videos are incredibly interesting, and has a deeper dive behind the scenes and closed doors of the gaming industry that very few have the ability to see.
I didn't think this video would be this interesting. Them not caring about Metroid is depressingly hilarious. What strange luck.
Keep in mind that Metroid only had three games at the time, and was never a big seller.
@@lalehiandeity1649 That and it's also not a direct quote from anybody, but more speculation and is being relayed by a guy who quit Metroid Prime development VERY early on, so it's hard to know how accurate it really is.
@@lalehiandeity1649the same could have been said about Kirby, Kirby and the Forgotten Land has outsold every other Kirby game by 400%
Forgotten Land is the best-selling Kirby game at 6.5 mil as of this comment, but Dream Land did 5.1 mil, Super Star Ultra did 3 mil, Star Allies did 4.4 mil... it's true that most Kirby games hover around 1.5 mil in sales, but it's had bigger hits in the past. @@cicjose6016
My understanding was Miyamoto actually cared a lot about making Metroid a success, because it was a game created by his recently deceased mentor. This video goes into detail about his direct involvement with the first Prime.
I think it's cool how you guys are able to make friendships with devs and even studios and get all this kind of information.
The story of Retro sounds like of many studios that died years ago after making a franchise killing game, yet they are still here, making some of the best exclusive Nintendo games out there.
Retro is a nintendo owned studio which means that they will not die unless nintendo wants them to die as long as nintendo pays the bills they will keep chuging along releasing a new game every blue moon (but that game wil be of the highest quality posible)
15:36 - 18:42 The fact that we would've gotten Mario Kick-off Football during the GameCube era is a bit mind-boggling!
I remember telling a friend that if Nintendo ever made a Mario Football game, then it would've been really fun and probably would've sold really well here in the west!
I can't begin to tell you how much people loved Mario Sport games even if they're not the biggest sports fan!
Crazy cause Mario Sports game peaked during the GCN era. Nintendo continued the Tennis/Golf series with Camelot and created 2 new sports series in that era with Baseball with Namco and Strikers/Soccer with Next Level Games. Could you imagine if we got American Football with Retro Studios. Would've been nuts.
Not really in the west, just the US. Very few people care about American football outside of North America
@@aprofondirThink it's got an audience in Australia to a degree. I have a friend there who posts about it ton.
Out of all the rejected pitches, that's the one I'm most surprised that they didn't get the greenlight for. Mario + Football would have done well
I remember hearing about 'Raven Blade' back in the 90s. It was mentioned on a bright orange VHS that came free with a nintendo mag.
I remember it too but it was in a tv show called GT Game Trailers, a small tv show in my country not associated with the real GT, and it was briefly mentioned in the last year of the GC lifespam
I think that was GCN magazine. I had that exact tape, and watched it repeatedly. I didn't have internet then, so the GameCube info blowout was incredible.
I cant believe Nintendo kept Retro on the books for so long without actually producing a game until Metroid Prime.
Three years isn’t much time. A bigger surprise is the ten years since Tropical Freeze.
That’s why it is so annoying when people complain about the cost of games from people like Nintendo. You are not just paying for the game, you are also paying for all of the product that doesn’t ship. They mine a lot of rock before they hit gold, and all of that work has to be paid for.
@@JazGalaxy I don't mind the price of most Nintendo games but it sounds pretty dumb to have to pay more because some games got arbitrarily cancelled.
@@CometX-ing that’s what is called “research and development”. Nothing was “arbitrarily cancelled”. They were cancelled because Nintendo didn’t believe in their viability. People always ask how “Nintendo’s games are always so high quality?” It’s because they cancel what isn’t. As an old design teacher I used to have always said, “it’s not practice that makes perfect, it’s process that makes perfect”. You don’t just get to a point where everything you do is perfect, but people think that because they don’t see everything you throw away as part of your process.
@@lalehiandeity1649Yeah. I find that so weird. It might be possible they worked on alot of projects or helped out other studios during that time. Good chance that Retro is mostly for testing new game ideas and helping out with other games.
My father has told me the same story a lot of times, from when he was in Japan, and wanted to give a book to the friend he was staying with. His friend said "Do not wrap it. Pretend it's your own book and that you accidentally left it here." I think there's a cultural taboo of Japanese people accepting gifts when they will be unable/not have time to reciprocate.
Fascinating
It's because in Japanese culture gift giving requires reciprocation or status befitting the gift. And part of the act of reciprocation is refusing the gift several times. When accepting a gift it's socially important to show the same respect when receiving the gift as was shown giving it. The Japanese have very little religious influence in their culture so the replace it with reciprocity and a keen awareness of social status.
It’s considered rude in Japan because in their culture you work without expecting something in return
As someone who has received gifts from a Japanese person before, they tell you at least in my experience first hand that they will give you something because you just don't just give an item straight away as it is too sudden.
Why don't they just "trade" something.
That portal game sounded pretty cool and seeing the mechanics in action was even cooler.
Yeah, my main concern is that Portal was successful and beloved for its elegant simplicity. 'Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out'. But Adept had at least five different kinds of cylinders, and no cap on how many you could make, along with the added complexities of combat. Just from the pitch alone, it seems like it'd be very clunky, and I'm not sure the mechanics would blend well at all with the snap-decision-making that combat necessitates.
@@Skelatox As pitched, yeah. It seems pretty clunky. If it was more refined maybe for sure could work. Splitgate's a pretty fun mix of Portal and Halo, so never know. it prob needed more time in the oven or even just more brains smacking against the blueprints to flesh out som'in that'd really work well with the formula.
@@KitoBallardAnd the fact that a great number of people were familiar with portals as a game mechanic, an iteration would be easier to teach and for the player to master, making it a lot more accesible. Truly a shame. Maybe an indie dev could make something like that.
The beauty of portal is simple and ver solid core mechanic, complex level design and puzzles. There were too much going on retro’s game tbh.
@@Skelatox I agree, it would have been too clunky by comparison and had it come out, it 100% would have just gone down in history as "that weird Nintendo Portal clone that's worse than Portal". Taking Portal and arbitrarily slapping on combat and a handful of other mechanics doesn't make it better.
I think if Adept focused on the push/wind cylinders, it would've been approved. All those mechanics make the game seem more complicated and may be hard to balance into a concise experience that utilizes all of them equally. Plus, Nintendo loves easy-to-learn, hard-to-master stuff! Wind on it's own seems versatile enough to keep a game interesting, and could make combat, puzzles and platforming really interesting!
I mean if we were able to get permission doesn't seem to difficult to create a indie game from it honestly
The story of Retro Studio would make a hell of a movie
Man that was the quickest 40 min that ever flew by. You guys are awesome at what you do!
I think learning that the Retro Studios Zelda was going to be dogshit in terms of gameplay was the funniest thing I've learned. It's kind of like Mighty No. 9 where they share concept art and people think the game is going to be amazing then the actual game is out and it's terrible.
"It's like Portal, with combat."
My 90s brain: "PORTAL KOMBAT!"
I thought this channel did trivia lists. It’s really cool to see it level up into documentaries.
I highly doubt Car Combat would've changed the way GCN vs PS2 panned out whatsoever
The PS2 was already the clear victor before it was even released.
It's hype was insane, coming off the PS1, while Nintendo had an uphill battle from the sparse final years of the N64.
However, I have no doubt it's sales would have been a lot closer if Nintendo had just included DVD playback.
That sounds really silly today but the PS2's DVD playback was a huge selling point at the time.
Yeah at best it would’ve outsold the XBOX and even then I’m doubtful given how big Halo was
Nintendo being difficult to work with for third parties probably screwed them in that gen and the previous, they should have used CD's with N64 and dvd's with Gamecube, and been accommodating to all third parties like they were with SNES somewhat. They shouldn't have driven away third party games, such as SquareSoft and even that car combat game.
Nowadays they embrace being impossible for third parties, now their focus is to just psyop their fans with their marketing, their nostalgia/fandom baiting, and their shallow gimmicks, whether it was the Wii and its motion controls and mass non-gamer market appeal, or Switch's portability and stagnant, innovationless, nostalgia-baiting games, though that's probably too based for normie Nintendo bandwagon riders.
@@davetheimpaler204yes and no. You’re right that the hype was insane for PS2. But there was an immediate pushback becuase the ps2 has an EXTREMELY weak launch library and about an entire year with no decent game releases. All the magazines at the time were releasing articles saying things like “Where are the games?!?”. This is part of what allowed MS to even have any kind of shot with Xbox. If GC had come out stronger, it really could have competed against ps2. But I’m talking if it were basically an entirely different machine.
Yeah after 2001 or 2002, there was no way to have overtaken PS2. It was the cheapest, had the biggest library, had built in DVD and CD playback, and launched before GameCube and XBOX. It's only real competition could have been Dreamcast if SEGA could have afforded to put a DVD drive in it and hadn't burned American fans, and the XBOX with its online capabilities [but which couldn't have caught up with its launch price being identical to that of the PS2 2 years after the PS2 launched]
Love it when you guys go into documentary mode, as a huge retro stan in the metroid prime era, this is a bit of a treat
Every time I think I'm all caught up on Retro's history, y'all post a new goldmine like this. This was a great watch.
I remember reading the rumors of Spangenberg, strippers, and an adult website hosted on a Retro server. Pretty crazy it was all somewhat true!
Kinda sad and crazy how he started the porn website solely because he wanted to one-up some other guy.
@@AICW True. I never knew about the car he overpaid for to spite John Carmack. It seems wherever Spangenberg went, controversy followed him culminating with "The Guy Game".
I remember reading that stuff on Retro’s Wikipedia page way back in the late 2000s.
It's amazing how this VERY American studio has been able to work so well for so long with the VERY Japanese Nintendo.
I don't know how any of you managed to research this deep but I'm more than thankful that you were able to uncover all of these amazing things and put them to the public to see. Thanks DYKG for all the effort and awesome content. Also, a Portal-like game in the Wii using the MP3 engine would have been super interesting to play!
I love Echoes, but holy shit that initial Prime 2 pitch sounds so good
i really appreciate the brackets in the titles for when information is researched specifically for the video. helps lower repetition and find really interesting videos
Love this type of professional video with very little speculation, great job DYKG :D
Raven Blade is one of those I've always wanted to see make a comeback, it would be really cool to see a Retro-developed action RPG overseen and tweaked by Nintendo- Nintendo polish and Japanese design concepts, combined with a gothic western RPG style, sounds rad
Also it's hilarious that universal-manipulator and master of spacetime John Carmack was slightly involved in the game's death
Any of these ideas can comeback in some capacity. You know this year we somehow got ultrahand toy after I don’t know how many decades later
So good at taking a topic I wouldn't think of being interested in and got me tuned in every minute. Love it!
with the recent Sakurai video about game pitches and not referencing an existing game as an example, im surprised to hear both sides of the example come up in this.
the one that boggles me though is the combat car game where Miyamoto was confused on a fun concept, despite the later comparison to Mario Kart basically having that same set up, but then those other employees saying it should have been compared
to Mario Kart would have gotten the projected canned right away with a probable response of "if its like Mario Kart, then why
wouldnt people just play Mario Kart?"
Miyamoto for all the series hes helped create has caused just as much disappointment and heartache. Dude is really past his prime.
@JJAB91 honestly he and more he's the game equivalent to butch Hartman
Sure he could have interesting concepts but most are just actions basically any child of the region did
Such as playing with a stick or messing with bugs
Thanks for the upload!
Have a great weekend!
i find it amazing how you manage to get all these interviews, even with NOA guys
you're doing an awesome job guys, easily my favourite "gaming history channel" :)
I really must thank you for bringing to life for the first time the handful of images of these games I drooled over during the gamecube era, Raven Blade in particular. I always wondered how so many games of varying styles that looked so promising got cancelled, and now it all makes sense. Thanks a million for all the hard work and not being bullied by these bullshit lawsuits!
If anyone wants to play the Sheik prototype, buy Sonic Frontiers and get to the wolf guardian. Its exactly as described and just as boring as you imagine
It's easy to blame Nintendo for a load of these, but the stuff mentioned about the dysfunction of early Retro makes me think they were probably smart to doubt their ability to cross the finish line.
Creating a studio named iguana and then out of spite wanting your new studio to be called mongoose cause they kill iguanas is one hell of a flex 😂 that's something that 100 percent would've been a thing nowadays
One part of me wonders (and maybe wishes) if Adept would've ended up being a Metroid Prime spinoff of some sort. Or hell, maybe some of the abilities you would've wielded would end up in a Prime game as utility weapons.
I don’t know. When they were explaining it, I was like “ that sounds way to complicated for Nintendo to touch with a ten foot pole”.
Anything that has words like “ as many as you want” sounds good to western design sensibilities and poisonous to Japanese design sensibilities. We have a “all-you-can-eat, big gulp, extra value meal, sense of design that wants MORE and Japan has a bonsai tree design sensibility that is always asking what you can cut and simplify.
@@JazGalaxynah thats just nintendo, i mean in japan you have stuff like the shin megami tensei and the persona series who is like three games in a trench coat
It seems Nintendo is more hyper traditional than even other Japanese game companies. They are really old after all, older than the invention of digital computers.
@@JazGalaxy Exactly my concern. Portal was beloved for its simplicity. Imagine it with six different portals you can create, no cap on how many you can have at a time, and fast-paced combat. That version of Portal would have been a mess, and not nearly as successful.
Amazing work as always, there's whole worlds of stuff going on behind the scenes that we'd just never ever hear about if secrecy was maintained.
less than 50 employees when once were like 200, damn, now i see why metroid is taking so long aside for the restart of the whole project.
EDIT:
Heard this was corrected! so, never mind!
Imteresting as it looks, I don't Adept would have taken off as a direct competitor to Portal. Honestly, it seems like Retro missed the whole point of Portal when they decided to make 'Portal with weapons'. To me part of the point of Portal IS that you have no weapons, other that the Portal Gun, the game works so well BECAUSE you have no weapons, it forces you to use your brain and solve puzzles with the portals, rather than giving you a hundred different options (such as teleportation, super jump, magmetism, or combat) that combine to make it too easy.
If I had a nickel for every almost-completed, licensed sports game by Nintendo on the GameCube that got cancelled, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice!
(For context: Nintendo also put together an MLB game, Nintendo Pennant Chase, that got canned after 2K agreed to bring the MLB 2K series to GameCube)
Your math is off for the sake of the meme (which I mean, respect). You're forgetting the Mario Combat Volleyball game, too.
Mario Combat Volleyball wasn't going to be a licensed sports title in the same vein (ie: no MLB or NFL license) @@svenbtb
Based on all this, it's not doubt the amount of talent they had at the time, but it is also true that they worked at their best when they had some clear direction, like when Miyamoto "suggested" for then to work on Metroid or their President straight up say they had to work on DKC returns. Not saying they had bad ideas, but a lot miscommunication between then and Nintendo, plus how much can a concept look on paper but change over development.
TBH a lot of Retro's original concepts in this vid were not really that imaginative at all or perhaps were a bit too bizarre for Nintendo's tastes. Were the former devs' suggestions that Miyamoto only gave Metroid to Retro because it wasn't "his" series a bit petty? Yeah, but Miyamoto knew these western devs could handle Metroid better than them.(and you only have to look at Other M to see otherwise lol)
@@FunkyGhost37 Get this, before Other M's development, Sakamoto did not think too much about "what kind of person Samus Aran was and how she thinks and her personality", particularly because the games tried to depict Samus as a mysterious person.
The reason Metroid does alot better in the West than in Japan, is because Metroid was inspired by the Alien series. Something Japan hasn't heard of.
What's bizarre to me about the Madden situation is that Nintendo could've taken that opportunity to push Retro's original design of making a more arcadey american football game involving their IPs, but I have a feeling the reason we still haven't seen a take on the sport with them is due to Japan's disconnection with it, and that probably expands to NoJ's execs to an even greater degree given they have a hard time even communicating with their overseas offices (also as this video highlights was probably much worse around the millennium).
I found it funny that to represent what Spangenberg is up to today, you put a photo of a cabin where a hermit would live, when I imagine him living in a Hugh Hefner-style playboy mansion.
23:24 THIS!!! I have been saying this since a long time ago, no doubt about the genius and the importance of Miyamoto to the industry, but if he feels that a franchise or a game has the slight potential to be more famous, he will just not give the care it deserves, it something that might explain why we dont have comebacks of great games,.
I think people don’t accept that miyamoto’s design philosophy is only to “say something” in the industry when there is something to say. That is, there is no reason to remake a game or franchise when there is nothing new to be done with it.
Gamers complain about “why doesn’t x get a sequel?!” And the answer is often, “because the previous game didn’t sell well, so why would we just do the same thing again and expect a different result?”
JAzGalaxy put it the best.
People that complained so much about F Zero not returning fail to realize their love for the series isn't directly proportional to its sales potential. FZero 99 having casual friendly elements like comeback mechanics is a calculated move for such an obvious reason.
23:21 Was it really Gunpei Yokoi's "baby"? I know it was developed with his team, but as far as I'm aware, Gunpei Yokoi didn't really have any involvement with the actual game itself. Hell, I heard a story of how he actually tried to *cancel* Super Metroid mid-development because he didn't like how slow the team was progressing.
I don't think Metroid was created by one person alone.
This actually explains why the series went dormant afterwards.
Name a more iconic duo than Retro Studios and Cancelled games
EA and shutting down studios?
That's a depressing running gag
Yeaaah.. lol
For as much vision as Miyamoto had over the decades, it’s crazy to me how often he lacked vision.
He has been a negative if you ask me since the Wii era.
What do you mean? Are you saying that all those ideas he cancelled were actually good ideas? He was totally right to pull the plug on those, they were boring, generic/derivative. We wouldn't have gotten Prime without his input. Not saying ALL his choices are correct, but dude knows what he's doing.
@@svenbtb The entire reason why Twilight Princess never got a sequel like OoT, WW or BOTW did is because of him. Hell, the entire reason BOTW even happened is because he went more hands off and let other people take charge. He is also the reason why StarFox is a dead IP and why F-Zero has been dead for 20 years.
@@JJAB91 Twilight Princess was never supposed to get a sequel, attempts to give TP a sequel were the dev team going way out of the original scope of the project
BOTW happened because Skyward Sword bombed for a Zelda title, they needed a new direction or the franchise was toast
F-Zero is dead because F-Zero GX did not sell over a million units, the anime got canned in the west, and F-Zero GP Legend and Climax bombed incredibly hard
Star Fox initially died because Assault and Command underperformed. 64 3D tried to revive it but it only sold 1 million units. Then Zero bombed, making it die again
@@zynux8252 F-zero and Starfox are based of Arcade shooter and racing games, both were huge in the 90's. Not so much now a days, so evolving them in the HD era is difficult.
The good news is that arcade shooters and racing games due exist in indie games.
Nintendo absolutely dropped the ball *no pun intended * by not making Mario Kickoff Football. I would do anything for a game like that.
So that's maybe one sale they'd have... Pretty sure they made the right choice, I doubt it would have even made enough money to recoup what they put into it.
Ive been saying for years now how it feels like Nintendo has some weird contempt for Retro even though they still do business with them, and this video really makes me wonder what it is Nintendo has against Retro
If anything, it's probably just anti-Western bigotry.
The Spangenberg legacy.
Nintendo's probably still a bit iffy after the early years with 4 cancelled games that could've really helped the Gamecube's launch, the disaster of Spangenberg and the shrinkdown to just 50 guys, and just the different philosophies of Western and Japanese game studios.
They don’t have contempt for Retro. Games get pitched and rejected all the time in the industry. But cultural differences can make things difficult.
I actually think Nintendo made the right call every time.
That's WILD! Adept had Portal 2 mechanics before Portal 2 existed.
Spangenberg's story is kind of sad, actually... you can tell the man has talent and sounds like a great person to work with, but his vices still got the best of him. Good to hear he's still alive.
As soon as I saw 'Cancelled Nintendo Games from Retro Studios' in the title, the younger me who had a VHS back in like... 2002/2003 with a trailer for Raven Blade got super excited
Metroid 1.5 sounds so insanely cool, I wish we got a game like that. Maybe some of it's ideas can find their way into Prime 4? Who knows?
Ironically apex sounds fitting for that plot
Here’s what happened to spangenburg after he was cut from retro.
Spangenburg made a new studio which made The Guy Game, a PS2/DVD game show game involving many women part of college spring break festivities at the time, answering questions with the consequence bejng that they flash their “assets”……
it gets worse…. cause it turns out one of the exposed women were underage as of the filming of her segment in the game….
This got spangenburg in legal trouble and got The Guy Game Banned.
When I heard the name “spangenberg” I already assumed he did all that stuff he did before knowing it. lmao
Would be cool to see Raven Blade and Metaforce having a comeback pitch to see of they work today.
Especially the original Metaforce concept with the three women.
Heck Thunder Rally sounds like fun too. Car combat racing with a twisted metal/mad max aesthetic? I’m in.
I’m one of the 6! Thank you for showcasing Retro NFL!
Adept would be a really cool gimmick for Prime 4 can't lie
Man you guy need to make a compilation video or playlist of the stuff retro did and made because you guy got enough material to make a documentary
Incredibly well researched and well done video. I was fairly familiar with the Retro story but this is the best video that really sums it up all nicely. It’s honestly a miracle Retro has finished anything, let alone my favorite game of all time alongside several other all time great games they’ve made. Makes the guesses on MP4s development so hard to gauge, it could be a shitshow but it could also be stunning beyond belief.
I usually never pass an opportunity to pick on Mark Pacini and the other two lead devs that left with him but I do feel pretty bad hearing about the burnout and being escorted out.
Yeah retro seems like a studio with a lot of great ideas but is limited by a severe lack of focus as during metroid prime era they were firing on all cylinders but afterwards were struggling on what to do next until deciding to lazer focus on donkey kong but after donkey kong wrapped up hit another lull until the other metroid prime 4 project imploded leading to another moment where no objections, this is what were focusing on.
Why do I think Metroid should get a new ongoing comic book series?
These devs must really have some serious passion to keep putting their all into these games, even after so many consecutive cancellations.
Thank you for your hard work getting all this info
This was so interesting, I love seeing cancelled projects like this and what could have been. A Nintendo take on Twisted Metal would have been really fun to play.
And for years I've wondered why Nintendo has has a Mario game for every sport exect Football. With all there other sports games, especially with how fun & Brutal the Strikers games were, a Mario Football games seems like a no brainer.
Only thing I can think of is that as a Japanese company, they're just concerned how much appeal an American Football Game would have outside the western market.
I heard through the grapevine that the canceled game in Retro's "Silent Era" was a game where the main mechanic was singing and using songs to manipulate the environment and solve puzzles. You didn't hear it from me. 🤫
Does it have anything to do with the character that was hidden in the picture on Reggie Fils-Aimé's desk?
That appeared to have a mechanical arm?
Do you know why it was cancelled?
14:01 "Americans understand the culture of cars"
Sony: [laughs in Gran Turismo]
Damn, that Spangenberg fella sounds like a dude worth a move/documentary, alone. Sounds like the Joe Exotic of his field.
Though beyond that, it's not hard to see why a lot of Retro's games got canned. Most just sound too derivative of other things, for Nintendo to truly be interested. Raven Blade's selling point was "Zelda but more mature", Car Combat was "Basically Twisted Metal, but on Nintendo" then tried to rebrand as "Edgy Mario Kart" when that wasn't working, & Adept is "Portal, but with WEAPONS!". The football game was mostly a casualty of circumstances, but Meta Force is the most distinct idea they produced at the time, & it's no surprise that's the one that held Nintendo's attention enough to become Metroid.
27:50 I could find the final game he made after being given the boot. Which uh had some... Controversy to say the least...
Amazing, historically relevant footage and information about video games that never saw the light of day! Can't wait for the Nintendo Lawyers to take this down
You guys have been killing it with the videos lately! Good shit
What an incredible video. A real service to the industry.
Another fascinating and entertaining watch!
18:39 Of course he has, it's called Mario Strikers :)
its seriously only you and me who remembers that game. poor football Mario!
Ironically it's a hybrid of both western football and Eastern
eastern? so not soccer or the american fotball but theres a third fotball game variant? lol! never tried strikers sadly :S@@donaldduck73
38:47 That reminds me, all Virtua Cop games and the similar games by Sega are basically just whack-a-mole. It's weird how many good games boil down to being basically games for children.
Also, I noticed that World of Goo music before the gameplay popped up there. I am not mistaking it with anything.
Did you know my uncle was Vasken Sawyer he changed his last name because he didn't want to associate with his actual family. He comes from the weird part of my dad's family. He was I believe either senior or lead designer for Metroid prime. He sent me a copy a few months before it's release for my GameCube signed by the whole team at retro studios when he worked there. Way before that though, he worked on a lot of point-and-click games on the old DOS computers like King's quest and might and magic and showed me a tech demo he was making for the DS. He showed me all the Metroid prime prototype files. He worked on the levels. Samus and other characters. He does a little bit of programming. He's a monster but I was happy to see this game early in my childhood and a copy of blood rain signed by the whole team. It's too bad I never get to see my uncle. He's off developing framework for like Dell or some s***
I did know that
It's really sad to see that all of Retro's original creations so far haven't been materialized into an actual game. Would be nice if someday they're able to keep working on Nintendo IPs that Nintendo would not work on themselves while outputting an original IP of their own from time to time, like how Rare used to do or how Monolith Soft kinda does nowadays
This video is so perfectly done, thank you for digging up all this information! Now I'm kind of bitter we never got a Nintendo twisted metal racer...
Mario party 5 has a mode exactly that
@@donaldduck73 what?
@tonymastro4275 search up mario party 5 super duel mode
Dude, a car combat multiplayer game released near the launch of the console? I would have played the HELL out of that game!
90% of what I played on the Gamecube was multiplayer, and I was always down for another multiplayer game. And that first year of the GCN, I was so hard-up for a driving game that I bought Eighteen Wheeler Pro Trucker. Imagine how much happier I would have been if I could have put my money toward Retro's Car Combat.
I'm really interested in knowing what the hell was going on in between finishing DKC:Tropical Freeze and starting Prime 4 development.
DYKG: [name drops Spagenberg]
[terrified Matt in the distance]
so utterly fascinating to hear about this studio and their work even if none of these games got to see the light of day
It's like the Ing in the dark of Metroid Prime 2 represented the crickets.
DYKG is fucking amazing ngl
18:32 That's blatantly untrue, soccer is association football and Mario Strikers exists.
"adept is like nothing you've ever played before, like portal with combat" so, Slipgate?
I wish DYKG would make a video about Peter Molyneux and his games and have Guru Larry narrate it.
35:44
It varies from studio to studio. In Nintendo's case at least, it _is_ gameplay first then IP.
In studios like EA and SEGA, it's the inverse.
I know gridiron football isn’t very popular outside of America, but a Mario styled take on the sport is overdue imo. I’d love to see it
I can't help but love Spangenburg. Maybe a little nuts, reckless, but smart and talented and tried to be good to his employees. Damn titties the bane of another great man lol
(plus he likes Iguanas, which are awesome and I'm partial too lol)
I know it's only a matter of time, but I really want to know what Retro was working on after Tropical Freeze. It sounds like it was an original IP- which they've more than earned the chance to do. Everyone who hinted at being involved seemed to be really excited about it. I hope it comes to fruition one day.
I have to say, between this and the Psychodyssey, I'm pretty glad I didn't get into game development