The development team for "Metroid Prime Hunters" at Nintendo Software Technology (NST) was led by the game's director, Masamichi Abe and the lead technical engineer, Colin Reed, who had both previously worked together on several games, including the Nintendo games "Pikmin" and "1080° Snowboarding". The team for "Hunters" was composed of thirty people, which Abe noted was larger than the development team of most other Nintendo DS games. Kensuke Tanabe of Nintendo came up with the original idea for the game. Retro Studios, which developed previous "Metroid Prime" games, was unable to develop "Metroid Prime Hunters" because it was already working on a game. Therefore, Tanabe contacted NST with the idea, and let them develop it instead. NST developed the game instead of Nintendo themselves because Nintendo wanted the division to influence "Metroid Prime Hunters" with western ideals, styles, and presentation.