Whatever is the usual amount Ninty spends for a Metroid title, I guess this time it could add some percent more to relaunch the franchise properly.

Tbh from a business point of view I would put it in the same region as what games like XBC2 have had invested.

If BOTW needed 2 million to be profitable, they could invest the same amount in Metroid; a top notch HD Metroid with excellent production values could easily sell over 4 million and become the new highest selling game in the series, factoring in that Nintendo's franchises tend to sell better on Switch than ever before.

Plus, as Pemalite pointed out, its not just the profits from sales of the game, but also that such a game would expand Switch's appeal and sell systems to people who would then go on to buy other games for their new Switch. There's tons of players out there who wouldn't buy a system for Zelda or Mario, but would buy one for an epic mature sci-fi adventure, and once they have the system they might then decide they may as well pick up BOTW and Odyssey.

Reaching new customers is critical to maintaining a healthy and growing userbase, and Metroid Prime 4 done right could win over gamers who currently have no reason to buy a Switch.

That's a misconception that it could expand the userbase, truth is Metroid requires too specific a taste for it to reach sales of 4m and Prime had the luck of the draw because people back then thought it was going to be a Halo like Sci-fi shooter (this was before the time of Youtube, social media etc...). Only way Metroid would expand the userbase would be if it changed from what it is which the current fanbase don't want, this isn't a series were you need to be into one or two particular things in your preference this is a series where players need to be into numerous things, Metroid is one of those series that will always have the same userbase range as a result.

Other franchises and new IPS are better prospects for expanding the userbase.

People said Zelda would never sell 10 million. That Xenoblade would never sell over 1 million. On Switch, games are no longer limited by the past sales ceiling of their series.

Zelda has far broader appeal (the worse selling mainline Zelda games still sold more than the best selling Metroid game) and much more freedom unlike Metroid plus no one ever said Xenoblade would never sell 1m the first game nearly did with a limited release you're going to have to link those who said that. Metroid requires far more from the players taste than these games and has since the NES days. Zelda is an adventure series with the recent game going massive open world with sand box mechanics BOTW even dropped focus on dungeons some Zelda fans are unsure about, Xenoblade is an open world JRPG with an in depth battle system that's easy to get into, Metroid is it's own niche in the industry to the point its its own genre along with Castlevania the latter of which has even been shelved by Konami due to its limited appeal which is the result of require such an advance taste to get into.

Past sales are not the limit for future potential, countless franchises have demonstrated this. But we're never going to agree, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Its hard to say.In one hand, every single long standing franchise is doing far better in the Switch than previous entries.On the other hand, MP 4 must have been in development a good while before the Switch released, so Nintendo wouldnt know that.

Having said that, I think Prime 4 is a game that requires that extra budget for the graphical department, given how much atmospheric the game is.And given the Switch massive sucess.Nintendo may have given an extra budget for whatever developer making the game hire some extra help to polish the game further, to give that extra shine.But you guys need to be reasonable, Metroid is not a big Nintendo franchise, at the very least on the sales front, and Nintendo wont go all in on it.In another words, they wont invest BOTW levels of money on it.

But I must say, games like Metroid and Xenoblade needs to get bigger budgets in order to grow.At least on Xenoblade case, it was made pretty clear that there is a big audience for those kind of games.

Yeah, but you cant ignore it either, because the sales history do show a pattern that can be studied to thus predict possible future outcomes.The only case which sales history might become less relevant is when the game in question tries for something entirely new, which is the case of Zelda, Mario(Kind of), and GOW, to give an example from a different platform.

You could say that a desirable hardware might unlock a game selling potential, which is indeed true in this case, and thus justify a higher budget for said game.The problem here is that MP 4 started development before the Switch released, and Nintendo was still unsure about the Switch doing gangbusters, and so being cautious about how much they were willing to spend on their games.Maybe given the runaway success of the console, Nintendo might have, sometime during 2017, given an extra budget to whoever is developing the game to hire additional personel to polish the game further, maybe even enhance some assets or key scenes, but MP 4 will be "held back" by being a game concotioned in the "pre-Switch era", in terms of when the development began.If Nintendo was being cautious about it, anyway.

And I mean, its not like Nintendo will not give it the appropriate budget either.Nintendo is very efficient with its money, and they know that the Prime series requires a good budget due to the nature of the game, so I dont think we should worry that much.

Prime 4's development is ongoing though, and much of its production will take place after it became clear Switch was a smash hit. Opening the purse strings a little and giving it VIP treatment would go a long way for a series that's always been defined by its immersive worlds.

You don't have to throw away what people love about a series to expand its reach either, as Odyssey demonstrates; it will sell more than any prior 3D Mario without alienating core fans.