I don't think sales are the Metroid series' problem. As long as the games sell in the millions Nintendo seems content to make them.
It seems to me that the lack of development of new Metroid games had more to do with internal workplace shifts which hindered the ability of Nintendo to produce good Metroid games.
Retro Studios wanted something new after Prime 3, and a lot of the old staff had left anyway. Every new developer Nintendo worked with ended up shaping the series into something fans didn't like. The previous attempts at developing Metroid Dread reached technical or creative limitations.
That Nintendo decided to develop Dread after Samus Returns' sales signifies to me that they are happy with the games in so much as they break even profit-wise. Whether the game is well recieved seems to be more important to them.
This makes sense too. Nintendo understands that their core base needs to be excited for other people to be excited about their systems and games in the long-term. Metroid might not be a huge seller in itself, but it has a strong fanbase that almost 1:1 overlaps with Nintendo's and this helps ancillary sales of other games in that it brings word of mouth/media coverage to the system in general.
I still think Dread will probably sell over 2 million, but if it sold only something like 1 million I don't see Nintendo having a huge problem with that.
The game's development costs probably are mid-tier/"AA" level.
Last edited by sc94597 - on 18 June 2021
