Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto recently spoke to GamesTM Magazine and discussed why Metroid 64 never happened.

In spite of the huge success of Super Metroid on the SNES a follow up was never released for the N64 and many fans were left wondering why. While the series came back on the GameCube and more recently the Wii for years gamers have been left in the dark as to why an iteration on the N64 never appeared.

GamesTM have recently spoken to Yoshio Sakamoto, Metroid's creator, and this issue was raised. Mr. Sakamoto stated that he just couldn't figure out how he could make it work on the N64 and when Nintendo approached another company about creating the title the company said that they felt they could not live up to the success of Super Metroid.

I was actually thinking about the possibility of making a Metroid game for N64 but I felt that I shouldn’t be the one making the game. When I held the N64 controller in my hands I just couldn’t imagine how it could be used to move Samus around. So for me it was just too early to personally make a 3D Metroid at that time. Also, I know this is isn’t a direct answer to your question but Nintendo at that time approached another company and asked them if they would make an N64 version of Metroid and their response was that no, they could not. They turned it down, saying that unfortunately they didn’t have the confidence to create an N64 Metroid game that could compare favourably with Super Metroid. That’s something I take as a complement to what we achieved with Super Metroid.

During the interview Mr. Sakamoto also discusses Metroid: Other M, the possibility of a Metroid movie and Metroid Dread so be sure to check it out.