Quite likely this is some handling by people who want to see Nintendo fail because they think it somehow diminishes their own preferred platform and announcing these games Nintendo is everything but failing. So attacking one of the main announcement based on it being 2D and therefore not worth full price is something to spin the discussion.

Metroid is for a large part of Switch userbase a fairly unknown franchise and none of their titles released in the last 10 years have seen any sort of commotion

How have you arrived in such conclusion? There is nothing even remotely close to animosity or any sort of gaming wars in this thread

The argument about pricing is relevant because this is the context of the market. Metroid is for a large part of Switch userbase a fairly unknown franchise and none of their titles released in the last 10 years have seen any sort of commotion

The most popular Metroidvanias in the market are indies, it was indies the ones to start a new wave in the genre, most of those indies are available on Switch and most of those indies are cheaper without comprising their quality

Nintendo brand and reselling value can maybe justify the 60 USD price tag, but to say the pricing and the fact this is a 2D release don't impact sales is nothing but delusion. Why are exactly people bringing up Link's Awakening to this discussion when even with the Switch brand and the release just after BOTW this game barely managed to outsold a Phantom Hourglass, a game released when Zelda franchise was much less popular? 

There was a precedent for a 2D non mainline Zelda selling about 5 million copies, and even Switch push couldn't make another 2D Zelda sell much more than that, maybe LA end selling 6 million once Switch is done but even then it's a increase of about 27% over Phantom Hourglass. It's surely a great increase, but not quite what was expected after BOTW elevated the IP for a whole other level. Why? Because LA is a 2D, a remake of a Game Boy game and is 60 USD

A increase of about 27% for Dread using a 1.8 million baseline would lead to ~2.3 million. Surely enough to a record breaking number, but there is a underlining indicator this could just go beyond if the price was more attractive. And unlike Zelda, there is no Metroid Prime 4 hype catapulting the IPs popularity, Metroid will need to fight with their existing strength alone. 

Yup exactly.

A full priced $60 2D Metroid versus a plethora of very good Metroidvanias (from retro style production vales all the way to stuff like Ori which has better than Metroid Dread production values as far as I can tell so far) all in the $15-$30 range.

People will pay more for Metroid than the rest simply because of the brand name, but not triple the price. $60 will absolutely affect sales, possibly by a few million. Just like Zelda:LA remake - that game could have sold millions more at $40 with all the Zelda hype in the BotW era but basically it had a great launch and then totally died off because nobody wants to pay $60 for a GB remake. Similarly, I expect Dread to have a great opening, at least for a Metroid game, and then sales to totally die off as everybody willing to pay $60 will have bought it at launch. And the crazy thing is Nintendo doesn't even react to the market when this happens. After the Zelda:LA remake sales died off (about two weeks after it released) I figured Nintendo would give it a price cut to $30 or $40 like a year later to pick up a few more million sales, but nope, just no reaction at all, so we can expect the same non-response from Nintendo when Dread's sales go quiet after launch week or at best after the holidays.

Nintendo is great but they sure make a lot of boneheaded decisions. 2D Metroid at $60 in 2021 is yet another one.

(1) How have you arrived in such conclusion? There is nothing even remotely close to animosity or any sort of gaming wars in this thread

(2) The argument about pricing is relevant because this is the context of the market. Metroid is for a large part of Switch userbase a fairly unknown franchise and none of their titles released in the last 10 years have seen any sort of commotion

The most popular Metroidvanias in the market are indies, it was indies the ones to start a new wave in the genre, most of those indies are available on Switch and most of those indies are cheaper without comprising their quality

Nintendo brand and reselling value can maybe justify the 60 USD price tag, but to say the pricing and the fact this is a 2D release don't impact sales is nothing but delusion. Why are exactly people bringing up Link's Awakening to this discussion when even with the Switch brand and the release just after BOTW this game barely managed to outsold a Phantom Hourglass, a game released when Zelda franchise was much less popular? 

There was a precedent for a 2D non mainline Zelda selling about 5 million copies, and even Switch push couldn't make another 2D Zelda sell much more than that, maybe LA end selling 6 million once Switch is done but even then it's a increase of about 27% over Phantom Hourglass. It's surely a great increase, but not quite what was expected after BOTW elevated the IP for a whole other level. Why? Because LA is a 2D, a remake of a Game Boy game and is 60 USD

A increase of about 27% for Dread using a 1.8 million baseline would lead to ~2.3 million. Surely enough to a record breaking number, but there is a underlining indicator this could just go beyond if the price was more attractive. And unlike Zelda, there is no Metroid Prime 4 hype catapulting the IPs popularity, Metroid will need to fight with their existing strength alone. 

Yup exactly.

A full priced $60 2D Metroid versus a plethora of very good Metroidvanias (from retro style production vales all the way to stuff like Ori which has better than Metroid Dread production values as far as I can tell so far) all in the $15-$30 range.

People will pay more for Metroid than the rest simply because of the brand name, but not triple the price. $60 will absolutely affect sales, possibly by a few million. Just like Zelda:LA remake - that game could have sold millions more at $40 with all the Zelda hype in the BotW era but basically it had a great launch and then totally died off because nobody wants to pay $60 for a GB remake. Similarly, I expect Dread to have a great opening, at least for a Metroid game, and then sales to totally die off as everybody willing to pay $60 will have bought it at launch. And the crazy thing is Nintendo doesn't even react to the market when this happens. After the Zelda:LA remake sales died off (about two weeks after it released) I figured Nintendo would give it a price cut to $30 or $40 like a year later to pick up a few more million sales, but nope, just no reaction at all, so we can expect the same non-response from Nintendo when Dread's sales go quiet after launch week or at best after the holidays.

Nintendo is great but they sure make a lot of boneheaded decisions. 2D Metroid at $60 in 2021 is yet another one.

Snes cartridges were very expensive back in the day, and this isn't a technology pushing expensive budget game that Super Metroid was back in 1994.  Capcom didn't charge $60 when they started making new Mega Man games, and this kind of feels like that maybe a bit more.  I personally think the game should be $40, but the $60 price point isn't going to stop me from getting it as long as the reviews are great as I expect.

(1) I'm not talking about this thread, but the argument is brought up on Twitter and Youtube often by persons not caring about Switch or Metroid in the slightest.

(2) The whole argument is based somehow on the idea, that 2D is somehow cheaper or something. But the reality is, 2D gameplay and 3D gameplay are just two different genres. New Super Mario Bros and NSMB Wii sold about 30 million copies, because the 3D Mario releases before just aren't the same. Nintendo then milked it to death so sales fell. The situation for Metroid is similar now. There was no 2D Metroid in nearly two decades, just Metroid games in a different genre (Metroid Prime). These are not the same genres, as Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart are not the same genre. The idea that 2D is bizarre, but explainable, as many publishers over the last years pushed the idea that graphical fidelity is innovation, because they lacked ideas in gameplay innovation. But the reality is, that 2D games are valid and distinct to 3D games. And similar to 3D games you can make simple and cheap ones or polished and expensive ones. So the idea that a game is not worth full price because of 2D is broken. I would say that a fully 3D game like Skyward Sword has a much harder way to explain the pricepoint than Metroid Dread. Because it doesn't add much. It is the same game. Every instance of FIFA makes incremental changes and new roster, but besides is the same game. And EA ask for full price and microtransactions on top. Metroid Dread is completely new game and looks quite polished. Full price for that is fine.

1) Oh, ok then

2) 2D are cheaper to produce, but that's not the point. The point is the perceiving value of a 3D game is overall higher than a 2D game, you can bring the 2-3 Nintendo games the are exception to this rule, but it doesn't change the overall market perception that 3D games are the true blockbusters in the industry. Maybe for you 2D game worth the same as 3D games, but I assure you not everyone share this view.