The previous chapter of this Chain Interview had concluded with a question EA Sports chief Peter Moore gave me during our Wednesday afternoon interview during E3 week in L.A.

[This post is the fourth in a series that recounts the chain of questions and answers I solicited from the people I interviewed during E3. I asked each of my interviewees to ask a question of the next one. Hence: Chain Interview.]

A mirthful Moore jokingly wanted to know why his boss, EA CEO John Riccitiello could buy en electric car just to guarantee himself one of the only two reserved parking spots at EA. Moore explained to me that these two spots were at a prime location at EA headquarters, marked for electric vehicles. I'm not a car person, so Moore had to explain me what a Tesla is, the brand of fancy electric car that Riccitiello owns.

The next morning, as Riccitiello and I wrapped our interview and the CEO told me he needed to get to his next thing, I asked him to answer Moore's query.

John Riccitiello responds: "The honest truth? I'll try the truth. I'm a gigantic believer in the environment. And I'm the CE of a pretty public company. And if everybody knows that I drive one of those things, it makes them think. And that's exactly why I did it. For good or for bad, that's why I did it. And I don't mind the parking space."

With Riccitiello's answer in, I thought I had just one more question to obtain. I needed the EA CEO to give me a question for the president of Nintendo of America. The chain was about to end close to where it began, back in Nintendo's E3 meeting area a few feet away from where Shigeru Miyamoto had started things.

Some context is needed for Riccitiello's question. Earlier in the week, Nintendo had hosted its annual E3 briefing. As is typical, Fils-Aime was one of the main speakers during the presentation. What was atypical was that many of the invited guests did not get to witness the presentation in person. The press did, inside L.A.'s Club Nokia, but developers, publishers, retailers and other business people had to watch the presentation via video at the nearby Nokia Theatre.

John Riccitiello asks Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime: "Why did you show the development community the video of your presentation but the press the live presentation? What were your considerations?"

I ferried this question to Fils-Aime, who tackled it at the conclusion of our half-hour interview. It should be noted that, by answering, Fils-Aime became the first repeat participant in my Chain Interviews. He was in the first one, too.

Reggie Fils-Aime responds: "Let me give a little bit of background. As we were prepping for this year's E3 and had the objective of a venue close by, to be convenient for all of the attendees, the options were quite limited. In the end, we chose Club Nokia with the expectation that a house of about 1200 people would be appropriate. Unfortunately, between the media, business partners and guests from around the world, our total invite acceptances ended up being over 3000. So that's what created the challenge of finding a second venue in very short order, which is why we did that supplemental experience in the Theater. So, we made a tough business decision that it was most important for the media to see it live, and we also made a decision that we would not make hierarchical decisions as to whether any business partners should view it in the Club.

"Said another way, I would have loved to have John in the Club. I would have loved to have had [Activision Blizzard chairman] Bobby [Kotick] in the Club. I would love to have [Activision Blizzard CEO] Mike [Griffiths] in the Club. Where do I draw the line? So we made the business decision to have all of our retailers, all of our other business partners, all of our publishers in Nokia Theatre."

And so the chain interview would have ended, because I had no one else to interview. But I suggested to Reggie that, if he was interested, we could extend the chain from him to Kotaku's readers. "I would love to ask the readers a question," he said."

OK then…

Reggie Fils-Aime asks Kotaku's readers: "In the same vein of Team Ninja working with Nintendo to re-imagine Metroid, what development group would your readers love to see partner and collaborate with Nintendo? And on what franchise?"

I warned Reggie that he'd be raising expectations with a question like that. He laughed. "Maybe it'll give us some further options on what to consider."

Please keep the chain going, Kotaku, by answering Reggie.

We hope you've enjoyed the Chain Interview.

Yoshio Sakamoto, Nintendo's long-time developer of 2D Metroids, and Yousuke Hayashi, head of Tecmo's Team Ninja, wouldn't tell me and Brian Crecente how Metroid Other M controls.

They wouldn't clarify how much of a 2D or 3D game Other M is.

Those fundamentals were kept secret during our E3 interview with the two men leading the collaboration between Nintendo, Ninja Gaiden development studio Team Ninja and a cut-scene production team led by a Team Ninja collaborator named Mr. Kitaura. That group, dubbed Project M, is creating the 2010 Wii exclusive Metroid Other M that closed Nintendo's E3 2009 press conference.

And while we did squeeze out of them that the game wouldn't support MotionPlus or the Wii Balance Board (they knew that was a joke question), Sakamoto and Hayashi were more eager to promote two aspects that Nintendo doesn't often use to sell its games: stylishness and story.

"Our goal is to provide the most interesting gameplay and deliver the most cool Metroid ever," Sakamoto said. It should be noted that Sakamoto has one of the most impressive resumes in the industry, so his desire to top past Metroids is a desire to top his own work. Back in the 80s, he did character design for the original Metroid. He directed or supervised most of the games in that series. He also did game design for Nintendo Entertainment System cult classic Kid Icarus and has produced most of the WarioWare games that followed the first of that series.

A legacy of Metroid development isn't all it takes to make Other M. In 2006, for all of Sakamoto's credentials, he found that his team of 2D-Metroid developers needed help to develop an idea he had for a Wii Metroid game. He wanted to make a game using 3D graphics.

Retro, the Nintendo-owned, Texas-based team responsible for the well-reviewed 3D Metroid Prime games, two of which were out by then, was, curiously, not an option. "Retro has their own approach toward Metroid games," Sakamoto said. "They had their own producer. Their approach to Metroid games has traditionally been the FPA — first person adventure — but my concept was kind of different than that and I was looking for a team that could bring my idea to life."

Enter Team Ninja, which, Hayashi said, "is very fond of Samus as a character. We've all got huge soft spots for her." Hayashi, a Team Ninja veteran whose youthful looks could let him pass for the almost-50 Sakamoto's son, most recently directed the well-regarded Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword on the Nintendo DS.

Interviews about Mario and Zelda games with Nintendo developers typically focus on gameply, but story and character were what Sakamoto wanted to emphasize, noting how the game fits into the timeline between the Super Nintendo's Super Metroid and the Game Boy Advance's Metroid Fusion: "With Fusion, that game was very story-driven. In that game, I believe I was able to explain Samus as a character, as a person, not just somebody in armor. And I was not only explain Samus but the characters around her… with Super Metroid I showed, through her relationship with the baby Metroid, some of her maternal instincts. Between those two stories I feel I was able to explain Samus as a person. But because Metroid equals Samus, I'd like to develop her character further, as a soldier, as a human, also as a woman. That's what they're hoping to do with Other M."

The two developers described the new project as one targeted right at Metroid fans. When I asked if there would be anything in the game for the Wii's expanded audience — say, for my mom — Hayashi said: "When Mr. Sakamoto approached me and my team with the game concept, it was definitely something I and my team felt would be a new challenge for them. Our take on this whole thing is we see the possibility to explore new territory within the Wii system. So we're hoping to create something that will appeal not just to fans of the series but to new users as well." Still, that lack of Balance Board support makes it clear that this Metroid game is unlikely to be going the casual-game route.

"Our goal in developing Other M," said Sakamoto, "Is to deliver the kind of Metroid that all fans want to play."

Morph ball and ice beam? Of course.

New abilities? Yes.

Progressions of the character's powers? That's the goal. Said Hayashi: "Metroid has definitely been one of those games where as the player progresses through the story you can really feel yourself powering up. You can really feel Samus evolving in terms of her abilities. I'd like to maintain that essence of the Metroid series. In addition, just the feel of the game, by being in there, the emotional experience for the player is something I feel responsible to maintain true to."

It's clear, though, that there will be a twist. The Project M team, Sakamoto said: "Will create a new Metroid unlike anything ever experienced before."

And when they're done, he wants them to work together again.

Metroid Other M is slated for release next year. Later this summer, Nintendo will release a Wii compilation of Retro's Metroid work, entitled Metroid Prime Trilogy.

Reggie Fils-Aime was his usual confident self during Kotaku's interview with him in a Nintendo meeting room this past E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Fils-Aime was proud this time of, in his words, "a holiday with content that speaks directly to the core Nintendo fan."

He was one E3 removed from many Nintendo fans' least-favorite Nintendo moment of the Wii era, the 2008 E3 media briefing that focused on more casual gaming experiences and was capped with the non-hardcore Wii Music. No regrets from Nintendo, of course: "Last year we focused on Wii Music, and that is a title that's very important to [Nintendo's head of game development, Shigeru] Miyamoto," Fils-Aime said. "And for all of the criticism, it's still a title that on a global basis has sold over two million copies."

This year Fils-Aime could talk about Wii Fit Plus. But he could also talk about New Super Mario Bros Wii, the surprisingly deep gameplay of Wii Sports Resort and even a new Metroid game, Other M. ("As fans will see, 'Other M' has a number of meanings, which we'll reveal in the coming months.")

But this being E3 2009, even with Reggie Fils-Aime, our most urgent topic of conversation had to be the buzz-building Microsoft Project Natal.

"We have been very familiar with that technology," Fils-Aime said of the hands-free camera-and-sensor tech Microsoft debuted for the Xbox 360. "I have personally seen a lot of iterations of similar technology. Our first reaction is that it is ironic that, three or four years ago, the prevailing industry opinion was that prettier pictures or more horsepower were the waves of the future. And now it's clear from both of our competitors that physical activity in gaming is the wave of the future. It's also ironic that, for Nintendo, the future is here. The future is now."

Fils-Aime said that it is too early to judge whether Natal — or Sony's new motion control technology — will be a success. Such a question can only be answered when the projects' launch software and prices are announced, he said.

And could he see Nintendo doing a Natal-type technology of its own? "We have pioneered many interface options that people take for granted today," he replied. "We've looked at similar technology and will continue to look at other technology for the future. What's different, I think, for us, is that the experience is what drives us down a particular path, not simply how nifty the technology is… When we looked at this technology and other technology, we decided that the best way to drive immersion and precision as well as creating an environment for publishers to flourish was the Wii remote coupled with the nunchuck."

Fils-Aime and I kept most of our talk on business and broader topics, as Mr. Miyamoto and a pair of Metroid developers engaged most of our gaming questions during other appointments. For Reggie, I wanted to know about some platform initiatives.

One of the new initiatives to launch since my previous interview with Fils-Aime was DSiWare, the downloadable gaming services for the DSi. Nintendo posted a list of 15 upcoming DSiWare games and applications (read animated sketchpads and clocks) during E3, which follow the first month's worth of games and, well, clocks, released for DSiWare. Fils-Aime said that Nintendo is "very pleased with the DSi connection rate to the DSi shop," but he declined to offer any download stats yet. "Our expectation is that it will quickly grow to be robust just like WiiWare," he offered. "WiiWare today has almost 90 titles. Including greatly acclaimed titles like World of Goo and Lost Winds. We think our model of highly-polished, immersive, innovative experiences is the right model to have."

Leading into E3, it was widely discussed by the gaming media that Nintendo might announce a Virtual Console service for the DSi, which could include games from old consoles as well as old Nintendo portables. "I know there has been a lot of speculation, but we have no plans for that," he said.

Nintendo is moving ahead, however, with Facebook integration into the DSi. As announced at E3, the connection will enable DSi users to upload photos taken with the system's cameras to Facebook. It's not a service that connects to Nintendo's home console, a point of contrast from the Microsoft-announced integration of Facebook into the Xbox 360's Xbox Live. "We think it makes a lot more sense for the DSi [than the Wii] from two different standpoints," Fils-Aime said. "One: the portable nature of the device and that instant satisfaction that you get from something like Facebook. More importantly, because of the two cameras and the 10 different camera lenses [in the DSi], we think that's where the appeal is. For me to take your picture, blow up your head, blow up your nose, post it on my page, [and say] 'Ha ha ha, look what I did to Stephen,' we think that's just a lot more fun and that's the direction we'll go."

Another partner that has been discussed as a possible collaborator with Nintendo is Netflix, which enhanced its streaming arrangement with the 360 at this E3 with an improved integration of movie-watching and Xbox Live. The Wii had been pegged as another potential console partner for Netflix. "We have nothing to announce [as] a partnership from an online streaming standpoint," Fils-Aime said. "Should we go down that path we will do something different than our competitors."

The NOA president and I also discussed the Wii Vitality Sensor and game sales for the Wii and DS. More on those topics in future posts.

Company president Reggie Fils-Aime dishes about why the company signed the developers to do Metroid, "We could've done a fine job on our own. But, we saw the Team Ninja group as a way of adding a little extra special sauce, if you will, to make it a really compelling experience." Just like Team Ninja has made its own games compelling.

So far, the industry reaction to the Team Ninja announcement seems to be good. "One of the pieces of feedback I've heard is that as we made that announcement," says Fils-Aime, "that there were a lot of development teams and publishers who started to say to themselves, 'Wow, Nintendo is open to these types of partnerships. Let's think of other ideas to bring forward.' Which I find exciting."

Then those same publishers say to themselves, "Wow, I wish I had know that Nintendo has had these kind of partnerships for a long time." Game Boy Advance Zelda games from Capcom, anyone?

Reggie Interview [GameSpot]

Oh come on. Don't tell me you weren't thinking it. The studio's games, with or without former boss Tomonobu Itagaki, have always been as well known for their T&A as their swordplay and volleyball. So there are bound to be people hoping/fearing that they'll soon be seeing Samus bouncing around in naught but a thong and a helmet.

Don't worry. Hayashi says Team Ninja will be keeping things classy.

"Every female character in our games is as attractive as possible, both inside and out", Hayashi said. "There has to be something attractive".

"But as long as we provide that in the one place - the inside - that's what's important with this game".

Touching. Maybe they'll save the jubblies for Super Metroid Beach Volleyball Extreme?

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During a Metroid interview yesterday with series director Yoshio Sakamoto and Team Ninja producer Yousuke Hayashi, we slipped in a question that was not about the newly announced Metroid: Other M.

Well, we thought it might be related.

For a few years, there have been rumors that Nintendo was working on a new side-scrolling Metroid game called Metroid Dread. There was even an easter egg reference to entities known as "Metroid Dreads" tucked into Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

So, we wondered, could the long-incubating Metroid: Other M, which we learned was conceived in 2006, be the Dread project?

"He's very familiar with that [game,]" Sakamoto's translator said after posing our question to him. "No, this is different."

We pressed for details on what Dread is. Sakamoto's response: "The day may come when Dread hits the stores, but this one is something that's completely different. This is other M."

Team Ninja looks like it will do wonderful things with the Wii hardware, giving Metroid fans who crave a return to third-person action something to look forward to. And the promise of Team Ninja artists and Samus Zero Suit action is practically too much to bear.

A trio of new screens is available after this.

Due in 2010, the game looks a blend of first and third-person gameplay (clip showed much more third than first-person), with shooting sequences mixed with old-fashioned Metroid platforming.

The game also features some shiny, animated cutscenes, giving the series a somewhat fresher, newer look for its story sequences. You can check out the press conference footage below.