Amid Fan Concerns About Metroid Prime 4's Sales, Nintendo Provides Some Clarity

Nintendo’s most recent earnings report delivered a routine update to its list of games that have sold at least one million copies by the end of 2025. A conspicuous absence was Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which led to hand-wringing among fans of the series. However, the game has now reached that sales milestone, but only when combining its performance across Switch and Switch 2.

That’s according to reporter Stephen Totilo, sharing the tidbit in an X post and citing a Nintendo representative. It’s unclear if Metroid Prime 4, which released on December 4, reached that figure by December 31 (as with other games in the earnings report) or if that includes sales through January.

It might be somewhat comforting news for Metroid diehards, many of whom were spelling doom and gloom for the Prime subseries and the Metroid IP as a whole. As a point of comparison, the Switch 2 Edition of Pokemon Legends: Z-A reached 3.89 million units sold, making it to Nintendo’s top-selling Switch 2 software list. At the same time, the version on the original Switch hit 8.41 million units, totalling 12.3 copies.

While reaching the 1 million figure is impressive for most games, comparing the sales numbers of Prime 4 to other Nintendo software is a salient reminder that Metroid has historically underperformed next to other IPs. Pokemon, Metroid is not. It’s uncertain if Prime 4’s sales performance was in line with Nintendo’s expectations, but its omission from the company’s earnings report stood out.

These numbers came out of Nintendo’s latest quarterly earnings report, which included the surprising detail that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still selling like gangbusters. Despite some impressive results, Nintendo’s stock declined after the report. The company is gearing up for a Nintendo Direct for Thursday, which will showcase games from the company’s partners.