Despite additional Prime 3 footage, Nintendo elects to hold it back. Find out why...

IGN reported today that the short Metroid Prime 3 teaser footage shown at Nintendo's Tuesday press conference was actually only a small part of the footage that was on-hand and available to be shown. The game, announced for Nintendo's next-generation console, is apparently well under development at Retro Studios, the developer of the first two Metroid Prime games. When asked why Nintendo would hold back on additional media for what is one of the company's most popular franchises set to appear on its currently most talked-about (and whispered about) project, Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan had this to say:

"Several of us felt pretty strongly that we didn't want people to misperceive that Metroid Prime 3 was our big [Revolution] launch title because that's not what it was intended to mean," Kaplan said. "And we really want to feel like we want to make sure we have a compilation with a lot of stuff that we're really happy with before we show it. It's like showing one finger of a hand doesn't make sense."

Disappointing news to be sure, as many fans had anticipated (and in some cases hoped for) a deluge of Revolution information as well as footage. Although it does not look like this E3 will provide that intimate look, the promise has been made and it would seem that Nintendo has indeed ensured that all eyes will be on them when they finally decide to pull back the covers completely from their new flagship project. For now, fans will need to rest easy with the knowledge that game development is deeply underway at each of Nintendo's talented internal teams.