Astral Chain over performed from PG's perspective so people need to stop mentioning it in this topic.

Skyward Sword HD did well for what it was, which was a port of a game that was divisive amongst the fanbase when it originally released on Wii and had issues beyond motion controls. Breath of the Wild's development was in many ways a direct response to feedback on Skyward Sword.

It ultimately outsold the Wii version by a decent amount, which isn't something that normally happens for Zelda remakes.

Nintendo's sports games are not ambitious enough to sell more than what they do. It's a shame because, Mario Tennis: Aces for example has such a great gameplay but nowadays people need all the bling-bling in a sports game to be happy. I personally prefer straight forward sports games, no matter if they are simulations or fun games.

Ngl it probably helped limit the sales but most last gen Switch ports comfortably sold their predecessors on the Switch. Case in point Nsmbud which was actually a port of a port! 

I was expecting at least 6m for DK.

I mean your opinion of your impression of the 1st game is fine by all means but at the time it released, Xenoblade Chronicles went to be the most acclaimed JRPG of it's generation by far due to it's great cast, a story with good emotional twist and turns, a GOTY music OST and by all means, a designed world which felt completely uniquely constructed from it's other contemporaries like FF and others would walked the linear path. 

Even today, the series still has a quasi unmatched way to setup and build up it's worlds and thematically the world is just as much a character as the characters of your party are. Other games in the genre practically do not do that.

Anywoo, since you haven't played XC3 or XC2 I presume. It's understandable that you might not get what makes the Xenoblade series unique and attractive in it's own way.

Pretty harsh to say that Mario Maker 2 is unfinished when it already way more stuff than Mario Maker 1, new items, new maker mechanics, 3D World arts type, story mode,, local multiplayer, and it had online multiplayer at launch it was just missing the ability to play with friends at launch. Also, nobody was expecting the Super World Maker in the first place before launch and wasn't in Mario Maker 1 so it wasn't like a removed feature and a mess of a launch. The game also got a 88 on metacritic at launch, its pretty disrespectful to call Mario Maker 2 unfinished and a mess at launch.

It seems some people really overestimate how games should perform. This is probably partly due to the insane success of a lot of the top sellers on Switch (and other massive games across other platforms). Not everything needs to sell 5mil+ in order to succeed or perform well.

ARMS for example sold 2.6 million, which is just fantastic for a new style of fighter. It just missed the mark to be in the top 20 best selling fighting games of all time, where it has to go up against juggernauts like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken, Super Smash Bros. and Dragon Ball (which are also pretty much the only games represented in the top 20). Expecting it to beat the founders of fighting games on the first release is unrealistic.

Astral Chain, as others have mentioned, sold above developers expectations, selling over 1.2million and they are making 2 more games for the franchise at least. In comparison, the switch version Bayonetta 2 and Bayonetta 3 sit at just over 1 million at the moment.

For me personally, I expected more from Mario Maker (the first one on the Wii U), considering the popularity of 2D Mario and building games, even though it was the the 7th best selling first party game on the Wii U. The second one however, almost doubled the sales, so it's a far fetch to call it underperforming.

I do think Pokémon Snap performed below developer expectations, but it's no surprise. Part of the reason Snap was popular when it first released was that it allowed people to see Pokémon in 3D. That's not a novelty anymore though, so you're just left with a small on rails 'shooter'. A €39,99 price point could've increased sales a bit, but I'm not sure it would've sold enough to make up for the 30% price difference.

Mario + Rabbids - Sparks of Hope also underperformed according to the developers. I think we can all agree Ubisoft misread the market though. All their games go on crazy sales starting even 1 month after release. The first game had a permanent price drop to €39.99 before it reached 1 year on the market, had multiple sales after that and went as low as €9,99 a couple times. Why on earth would you pay full price, or even at the initial price drop? (I did buy it, but I'm not the average gamer)

Sushi Striker definitely underperformed, and again, completely misreading of the market. Insanely high price for a game in a gerne you can find hundreds, if not thousands of versions of on mobile or web-based platforms. 

People can call me nuts all they want, but I think Metroid Prime Remastered will sell 5 million or so. At least if you count physical and digital.

Metroid Prime sold about 2.8 million on the GameCube. The Switch has a far higher install base and there is a lot of nostalgia for Metroid Prime. 

Metroid Prime 4 selling 5 million probably won't happen. 

 What a bad take. No Xenoblade 3 is not Xeno 1 with new clothes. Xenoblade stood out for helping revive the genre in 2010 and making some big changes to the genre on top of being extremely well-made. A fantastic story and characters music etc. JRPGs of that era were things like the budget-conscious and ever-so-mediocre Tales of games. Neptunia shit. Shining Refrain. Even higher-budget trash like FFXIII-2 felt held back in scope and ambition. Pushed the Wii beyond its limit and ran well. Making Monolith one of Nintendo's best studios not only in quality games but knowing how to push Nintendo hardware to the limit. Monolith should be in the conversations of studios like ND who get the most out of the hardware they have to work with.

Did you even rebuild Colony 6? I have 3 times. Finished the game 3 times. Twice on Wii (PAL and US) and Switch. The game added a lot of mechanics and features not seen in the genre at the time and still, most don't. Took some inspiration from western RPGs and implemented them. Some quests only can be completed at certain times of day or weather. Xenoblade is unique for many reasons. It's still unlike anything out there. If you need just one obvious thing to see what makes XB so unique it's the massive worlds even tho that is just one element of many. But that expertise is why Monolith designed the open world for BOTW. Oh and BOTW owes its best in class design to games like Xenoblade X which not only was a large sprawling world but added verticality.

Every Xenoblade game like any series has elements of being familiar to other games within a series or made by one studio but they all each have their own tone and feel. Xenoblade 3 feels far more hopeless than 1 and esp 2. The last half of that game feels more like Xenosaga and blade and chunks of the early game feel more like Xenogears than Blade.

It did comfortably outsell the Wii U version. It more than doubled it.

What do you mean with the bolded?