This game will forever be a lesson to Nintendo not to announce a game in development before they know it’s going to be finished. I hate to join the chorus of folks who believe the game won’t be good, but I could see Nintendo going, “crap, it’s not up to our standards for the Prime series but cancelling at this point would probably result in a riot.”

I really don’t think that’s going to be the case, but I also understand the PR predicament that could result in that happening.

I do think we’ll get a direct in mid-November like folks are saying and I’m going to have to practice restraint and probably not watch it (spoiler alert: I won’t have restraint).

I think the issue isn't that it's a first person shooter, it's that it isn't really a first person shooter. While there is plenty of fps shooting in the Prime games, it's much less than a typical fps game. It's focused a lot more on exploration. 2D Metroids (and Metroidvanias) are easier for people to wrap their minds around than a 3D FPS version. And for FPS shooting fans, it's simply a very different genre than the high-action and multiplayer death match games they go for.

Metroid games have always had a small fanbase, but the 3D Prime's seems to be in an awkward spot of being not enough like classic 2D Metroidvanias while also being not enough like FPS shooters. Despite being amazing games.

I do think Prime 4 will break the Metroid sales record, and might even hit 5 million. It's coming out for both Switches, and is the holiday title for the new Switch 2 which doesn't have much else in terms of AAA first party games on it (although this may be hurt a little bit by the fact that it's a last gen game with just a quick next-gen polish and not actually a next gen Switch 2 game), and it's the swan song for the Switch and it's 150+ million systems sold.

I would think it'll get a couple million sales on each system, from Switch users who have been waiting years for it to finally come out, and for Switch 2 users who are waiting for games to play on that system.

The only thing making me question this is that the excellent Metroid Prime Remastered only sold like what a bit over 1m on Switch. It seemed like there was a lot of excitement when that game got dropped, and a lot of hype that it's graphics were actually redone and not just a port, and it was $40 instead of $60, and there were massive shortages of the physical game when that dropped a couple weeks after the digital release...yet it didn't sell much more than 1m I think. With the excitement when that came out I thought it'd pass 3m and Dread's sales, but nope it was just a lot of excitement around a small fanbase.

Metroid is one of the most deserving franchises in all of gaming to get far more sales than it has always had. Hopefully Prime 4 at least moves the needle a bit ahead and can hit 4 or 5 million.

I think design choices will still limit the appeal of the franchise but I'm hoping it can achieve 3m by march, 5m LT.

There has been some inflation in most franchises since the Switch released, so I think we will see the same for Metroid with a chance of reaching 5 million lifetime sales.

Dread which is a much lesser game in Scope (not quality) is the best ever selling metroid game on one console. The remake of Metroid Prime sold over 1 mn.. so I wouldn't be surprised if we get to 3 million by end of March but probably won't sell a whole lot more after. The Metroid Direct though will definitely tell how hyped people will be for this and whether this actually is the game that raises the profile of the series

Very easily 3m unless the Switch 1 version is reported to run terribly and only Switch 2 users buy it.

Need to see a bit more of the game but Im going to be a bit ambitious and guess 2.5-3 million.

Not well based on what has been shown so far. That boss fight shown in the demo with the glowing weak spots looks boring AF. Nintendo cannot design bosses for their games.