Marce-chan
Magical Girls <3
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I think we have to go wilder with expectations.A 2023 release would put it in Year 7 of the Switch life-cycle. That's a very, very late release for a game with big sales expectations, but it forced me to look up similar situations on past consoles in regards to late-in-the-day tentpole releases. I think most similar release is probably God of War 2 - a 2007 PS2 game that came out after PS3 was on shelves. A critically and commercially successful game.
We really don't know what Nintendo's philosophy is going to be for whatever comes after Switch - ideally it would be something that's entirely backwards compatible a la GBA or PS2 to keep the OG Switch software ecosystem alive for a while longer.
Let's say Switch 2(I mean a full on successor) comes in early 2024(and I'm sure as hell it won't):
Metroid Prime 4 is not cross gen. Instead, it's a heavily marketed Switch exclusive, to the point the actual successor isn't even show till close to release so it doesn't overshadow it. MP4 is the big holiday release of a, idk, 120m user base console? And that after getting a 2D game that potentially sold 3-5m and the remaster of the first in its franchise which is one of the most acclaimed games ever released just one year before, and that game was the surprise announcement of the E3 of that year and the spotlight title of its release year E3.
Pokemon Sun and Moon released exclusively for the 3DS just four months before the Switch, and after it was announced, and still managed to sell 16m.
The Last of Us came for the PS3 literally the month before PS4 launched and sold really big, and was a new IP.
Until PS2/GCN era It was common for the games released late in the console's life that weren't cross gen to be flops, but that tendency got reverted with PS360 with the best selling games coming in the last year of the console. We also have Pokemon Black and White selling gangbusters just months before 3DS, and Black and White 2 selling big too when 3DS was already out. Very big releases came to PS4/XBO in 2019 and 2020.
I'm not saying Metroid will do Pokemon numbers, that will never happen. I'm comparing just the phenomenon that releasing late in a console's life isn't a backtracking anymore. Moreso to frontloaded titles, like Metroid will be. The bigger the install base the best.
So, I don't believe MP4 will be cross gen with the Switch. I think it will be launch title to a more powerful revision. But even if it isn't, I don't believe 2023 will be the last year with huge switch launches, and even if it was, I don't think it'll underperform.
I expect Prime 4 to be anywhere between 5-10m. After Dread's sales are know, I'll adapt that further, be it like 4-6m or 7-10m.