Metroid Database.com

From the guys at Kotaku came this headline, after a visit to the offices of Nintendo of America. In a nutshell:

"The rumors that all three Metroid Prime games would receive a compilation release in the US with the "Wii-applied" control scheme were true."

In other words, the explanation for the suspicious lack of international release dates for Metroid Prime in the New Play Control! series is that Nintendo had planned on bundling both Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes together into one package for the Wii. An unexpected move on their part, but it looks like a screaming deal for fans and newbies alike!

Just to take it a step further, they're also bundling Metroid Prime 3: Corruption into the mix to give us a definitive compilation of the Metroid Prime trilogy. Each game will be immediately accessible from a central menu screen (Super Mario All-Stars comes to mind) and each will benefit from the improvements we saw in the Japanese Wii-make of the first Prime (HDTV options and Wiimote controls, specifically).

Best of all, we appear to have a slated US release date of August 24, 2009. Still no word as to whether Europe or Australia will be receiving this compilation as well, but you'll see it to the right of this page once we know!

-Jesse D