Dread has the highest launch month sales in series history in the US, and is the #3 best selling game in the US for October without counting its digital numbers. 

https://nintendoeverything.com/metroid-dread-sees-highest-launch-month-sales-of-any-metroid-game-ever-in-the-us/

https://nintendoeverything.com/october-2021-npd-top-20-best-selling-games-in-the-u-s/

The number is supposed to be 854k in the US according to this article : https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/12/22776640/nintendo-switch-oled-sales-october-2021-doug-bowser-interview

Outside of hardware, Nintendo noted that Metroid Dread — which launched alongside the OLED Switch on October 8th — sold 854,000 units in the US, making it “the best start for any Metroid game ever,” according to Bowser. Meanwhile, Animal Crossing: New Horizons received “a significant spike in people buying the game” after its final major update, according to Nintendo, though the company hasn’t released specific numbers on this. New Horizons is currently the second best-selling Switch game with nearly 35 million units sold globally.

So in just over three weeks, in a single country, and not including digital, it's sold nearly a third of the current highest selling Metroid game's total.

Globally and overall, it's probably well over half of Prime by the end of last month. I think it's safe to say at this point that the ceiling for Metroid sales is going to be shattered.

Basing these off of Paul Gale's calculations, these could be Dread's final sales figures if they follow these stats.

854k x 3.62 = 3,091,480 units in the US alone.

3,091,480 / .55 = 5,620,873 units worldwide.

I'm shaking from excitement. That's insane. And I thought 3.5mil was the ceiling before it launched. Since it has great wom it's launch to lifetime multiplier could be way better than the 3.62 average.

Honestly, for as good as Dread's sales numbers are, I'm kinda disappointed they're not better. It seemed to be everything anyone talked about.

We don't have the complete picture yet, only Japan numbers and October numbers in the US, the former physical only. I'm gonna withhold judgement til we get the next quarterly report, but I think all things considered it seems to be off to a very strong start. This isn't Mario or Zelda after all, Metroid has always been comparatively niche.

What exactly were you expecting, if I may ask?

Because by Metroid's standards, this is absolutely fantastic. Any Metroid fan should be overjoyed by those numbers. It's at an easy 1 million between the US and Japan alone. If we factor in Europe and the rest of the other regions, it's probably closing in on Prime 1 as we speak.

Great news regarding the sales of Metroid Dread!! We'll definitely see more Metroid games soon, including Prime 4.

I don't know, just... I'm not impressed by it overtaking Prime 1, that was a given on the Switch. Everything on it breaks records, but some blow records out of the water while others just raise the bar a little. I was hoping for 5 million at least for Dread, and that may indeed happen, but I really hoped it'd be more. Then again I don't think we even know if the 850k number includes digital sales, never mind other regions, and then there's the holidays coming up. I guess there's still plenty to come.