Oh I agree it can be sold in a better way too, I'm just making the point that nothing in the trailers so far indicates "trouble" or quality concerns. Unless the concern is lack of ambition and failing to meet a bigger commercial potential

Yes and No.

No because Retro is a good developer so the game is going to be good. Yes because as you said the fact that it's releasing in December means Nintendo doesn't have a lot of expectations sales wise. The problem here is if Nintendo knew Metroid is going to stay niche then why use the Zelda BoTW blueprint on it that clearly was a move to attract more people, it's a hit or miss, a hit like DK or a miss like MK World (Mk doesn't need the open areas to sell tho). I'm going to buy it but I'm not going to buy it on release, I want to wait a little to see open area gameplay and how often it's forced. I want the best for Metroid because Nintendo already shut the franchise down once so the best scenario is that it sells the 3 million (in a 120+ million ecosystem) Dread and Remaster sold.

Kirby Air Riders Direct announced for Thursday. November belongs to Metroid Prime 4, folks. I’m going to go out on a limb and say we’ll get a Metroid Direct during the second full week of November. Get those hype machines primed and ready!

Keep in mind Super Metroid is probably the highest rated and adored Metroid game to date... Which was a 2D only title.. And that outsold Metroid Prime 2 and 3.
The 2D metroids have historically done just as well, if not better than the 3D titles.

Metroid Prime Remastered only pushed 1.5~ million units on Switch, which is a solid undertaking for a remaster.

TBF there is a lot of nuance to this list. MP2:Echoes released (i) later into the GCN lifecycle and (ii) on the same day as Halo 2. There was never any hope for that game. MP3:Corruption & MP:Hunters released on a system in which non-casual titles sold infamously poor. MPRemastered was shadow-dropped with virtually no marketing. And every single one of those 2D Metroids released in very desirable conditions, whether that be on a system in which non-casual games sold well and/or a system which sold very well (i.e. NES, GB, GBA, NSW).

Accounting for these confounding variables, I’d personally argue that 3D Metroid has far better mainstream appeal than a 2D Metroid any day. Had Dread been a fully 3D experience with the amount of marketing it had received, I would not be surprised if the game had broke 5mil LTD.

Come on. It's silly to bring up a game from 30 years ago, at a time and on a platform where almost all games were 2d, to say that Metroid Prime 4 wouldn't have more appeal than Dread today due to it being 3d. No being a 2d game on the SNES did not hurt your sales.

I hope you are right...

It's not silly. Because even today I would argue Super Metroid is a far better game than the Prime titles... There is a reason why I keep going back to Super Metroid 30 years later and not the prime games... Super Metroid is one of those amazing games that have stood the test of time and aged wonderfully.

So have the Prime games. Lots of people come back to them time and time again. And to Fusion. And to Zero Mission. And to the original Metroid. And to Samus Returns. And to Dread.

Super it's not special in that regard just because it's the only Metroid game YOU come back to.

It did not. Halo 2 launched 9 NOV 2004. Prime 2 launched 15 NOV 2004.

I remember because I played the hell out of both :D