"What went wrong with Metroid?" Nintendo wants to know.

Here's an ironically funny- if not sad story. According to Kotaku, Nintendo is looking into what exactly went wrong with the sales of their latest Triple-A title Metroid: Other M.

Sales for the new Metroid game have been modest but Nintendo was expecting to sell at least a million copies. As it stands now, the game has sold half that, and their initial goal is no longer expected to be achievable. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime told Kotaku

"We're not going to get there, not through the holiday. And we are doing a lot of thinking as to why. Because it's a great game. The consumer reaction because of the quality has been strong. We're doing a lot of thinking about why we didn't get there. I think the marketing was strong, advertising was very good, the social media we did was very positive."

Reviews for the game really have been mixed overall. Most have praised the game for it's visuals -especially for a console that has not been known to produce beautiful graphics. Many have also been warm to the unique gameplay as a mix of third person brawling and first person shooting. However, there has been equal parts criticisms of the game, from the story, the controls, voice acting and what is perhaps the most heavily criticized aspect is the characterization of famed video game heroine Samus Aran.

When asked about the handling of the Samus character, Reggie Fils-Aime added,

"First off, I have nothing but the greatest respect for the development team. Mr. Sakamoto (co-creator of Metoid) did a wonderful job. His partnership with us in promoting the game was stellar. Team Ninja is absolutely fabulous. I'm not going to sit here and criticize a style of the game, but have I read the same feedback that said, broadly, that the portrayal of Samus felt different than how the player in the past had internalized the character? I've heard and read the same feedback. Do I think it's warranted or not? I'm not quite sure yet... I don't yet believe that that is the driving factor to the performance of the game."

Game Cop isn't a site run by Game's analysts but we can offer a list of things that could have contributed to the unexpected sales for Metroid: Other M.

1. Wii owners are not interested in big budget action games.
2. People who were interested in the game don't want to play it on the Wii.
3. The voice acting is horrendous
4. The story is needlessly melodramatic
5. No one knew what sense to make of the game despite the commercials.

We'll be posting a Metroid: Other M Post-mortem before the end of the year. So you'll know exactly what we thought of the game in the near future.