Longest period between Metroid releases

Despite Samus being on something of a hot streak back in the late 80s and early 90, courting both critical and commercial success with Metroid (1986), Metroid II: Return of Samus (1991) and Super Metroid (1994), she wouldn't star in another Metroid franchise title for 8 years and 243 days. That was the amount of time between the Japanese release of Super Metroid for the Super NES on 19 March 1994 and the North American release of Metroid Prime for the GameCube on 17 November 2002. Metroid fans would then have just one day to wait for the next game in the franchise, with Metroid Fusion being released for the Game Boy Advance on 18 November 2002!