How on earth can ditching the long announced version of the game that's gonna have a 145m install base when the game comes in favor of an uncertain next hardware that will be in shortages when it comes for the good of the series??
Going by this reasoning, Nintendo should not release a Switch 2 at all since thier current user base is so huge and they'll risk to lose it.
Also, in general publishers shouldn't try any new or smaller IPs on new consoles, since older consoles will naturally always have a larger userbase initally.
It doesn't work that way, demand is the factor, sales is just a reflection of demand over time (this goes both for consoles and games).
Without looking any further than the Metorid series itself, you can clearly see install base is not the most important factor at play.
Otherwise why has MP3 sold less than MP1 despite the 5 times larger install base? Why MP Hunters on DS have not outsold both on an even larger install base? Why Samus Returns have not outsold Super Metroid? (again the install base was more than double at the time).
If you look at Nintendo's best selling titles, you can easily tell they sell so well because they generate a demand that is mostly unmet by any other publisher in the market. They have unique playstiles and themes that are not replicated (at least with the same scale and quality level) by any other competitor. Nintendo is deliberately very careful giving their games elements of "uniqueness".
Metroid is different, because it "lives" in a very crowded place, meaning there are lots of sci-fi themed shooters and space exploration games out there (although with different mechanics). This means it's more difficult for it to stand out. To do so, it has to play on the same ground as possibile as other titles. The visual/presentation standards players are accustomed to play this kind of games are high.
No it wouldn't. We have Tears of the Kingdom that impressed everyone on said aging hardware. And hardware doesn't make miracles. A game coming for better hardware won't automatically look or play better than a Switch game. It'd have to get a budget for that. And MP4 won't have a budget anywhere near games like TLOU, Tomb Raider or Horizon to take full advantage of Switch 2.
And let's not forget the game restarted development by 2018, when Drake hardware wasn't even close to be finished so they'd start development on Switch regardless. They'd have to reboot development again by 2021 or so again in order to have it on a big graphical and scope level for it not to run on Switch.
If anything the game being thought for Switch only will make it look more impressive for Switch, as it'll be less demanding than say the next 3D Mario so it can take full advantage of 4K/HDR/RTX.
BotW was the big showing of the Switch and it's a Wii U game.
I think everyone considers Horizon Forbidden West one of the most impressive PS5 games and it still has a PS4 version. Everyone considers GoW Ragnarok one of the best looking games of 2022 and it's literally a PS4 game.
Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild are perfect examples of what I stated earlier. Nintendo worked hard to give BOTW a very distintinctive look and feel, its artstyle does not look comparable to any other game on the market at the time, its new design concepts to make it also play differently from any other open world game in the market. And yet Zelda started from a much better position, having already unique long-established formula without virually any direct competitor.
As I said earlier Metroid doesn't have that kind of advantage. Using a more solid hardware configuration allows developers to both to not starting at a disadvantage (in the comparison with other games) and gives them more resources to innovate to the formula.
Cross-gen PS4/PS5 titles still work beacuse we didn't get yet that kind of generational leap that rises general expectations (TLOU2 and RDR2 despite being old-gen titles are still among the best looking games out there on any platform), the Switch is not in the same situation.
