Also I thought Gunpei Yokoi was the creator of Metroid, not Sakamoto.
No one said Sakamoto was the creator of Metroid.
I did and he is one of the creators as he was one of the directors of the first game. Yokoi was the producer. As part of the original design team Sakamoto realistically has as much claim to it being "his" series as anyone.
Wow, I didn't know Sakamoto was part of the original team. But come on, he changed the formula SO much in Other M, that it makes me wonder if he even understood it himself. If Other M was a new IP I'm sure we would be praising it. It was a very crappy Metroid game.
Here's an idea. Make a 2.5D Metroid game with a central huge hub area made by Nintendo and have it connect to 3-4 other areas made by 3rd parties, like Capcom, Konami, Team Ninja and even Retro (2nd party I know). The idea being that each area would be self contained, with its own original power ups, mini bosses and a final area boss. The power ups would be useless in the other areas, because of something in the central hub. I know this would be hell to implement, but think it would inject life into the Metroid series.