I never understood using sales to determine success of a game, given it doesn't take into net profit (e.g. profit margin). I would guess Rise was cheaper to develop than World.

Sales it´s a tangible metric because people have the choice the buy the game or not. But sales need context. Without context, sales are so important than media evaluation. And media evaluations don´t have such value. 

There is no way to determine if Rise was cheaper to make than World, unless we get a statement from the devs. Sure it is 3 platforms vs 2. But going from PS/XB to PC is much easier and cheaper than NSW to PC.

People also say Rise has more content than World, ie more time designing bosses, balancing, more time designing armor sets etc. So again it would be really hard to determine which one is cheaper to develop.

It was always my understanding that graphic fidelity is quite expensive from a development perspective.  I would expect Switch games on average to be reasonable compared to ps4 as a result.

Yes and porting from Switch to a console or PC with such high graphical power is also quite expensive.

If this was Switch version vs PS4 version alone, then for sure the Switch version is cheaper.

But in the context of Rise vs World as per your 1st comment, we have no idea.

Fair enough and my comment isn't just about monster hunter but in general.  Total sales isn't a great metric given it doesn't factor in profits.

Rise + Sunbreak combined have done over 10m.

Monster hunter World is in the 21-22m range. Iceborn expansion was over 9m by end of 2021.

Honestly hope they do a Monster Hunter World 2.
It felt like a step back, going from what they could do with MH in world vs Rise.

It´s not combined. Its Rise only ( with bundled Sunbreak) counts 10 million. Sunbreak  only is 2 million

Rise ( base games, in numerous forms, included the "bundled" with sunbreak) = 10 million

Sunbreak = 2 millions. 

MH Rise is now up to 11m total.
https://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/news/html/e220823.html

Btw, congrats to everyone in the poll that voted at least 10m. You're on the right track. Now I think we're going to have to wait and see if it will settle more in the 10-15m range or the 15-20m range.

From a world design perspective, I see how they might have gone back a bit. From a gameplay perspective though? Absolutely not. Rise completely trumps World in terms of the smoothness and variety of the gameplay. The wire bugs are game changers and the online is way more streamlined like the old games compared to World.