Nintendo has started canceling pre-orders for an upcoming game on Nintendo Switch and in the process has sparked theories from fans tied to the decision. For the most part, Nintendo is pretty much done releasing new games on the current Switch. Outside of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, there are no other games from Nintendo that the publisher has yet announced for the hardware. Now, in the wake of one of these aforementioned Switch games seeing its pre-orders scrapped, fans are wondering if the title is instead bound for Switch 2.
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Within recent days, cancellation emails for pre-orders of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond began going out to those who had previously reserved a copy of the game. Pre-orders for Metroid Prime 4 had been live for well over seven years and had gone live not long after the game’s original announcement in 2017. Now, for one reason or another, Nintendo has chosen to cancel all of these orders despite the fact that MP4 is supposed to release later this year.
As a result of these pre-orders being scrapped for Metroid Prime 4, Nintendo fans have tried to deduce why this happened. Some have asserted that Nintendo opted to end its pre-orders for Metroid Prime 4 on Switch as it is instead planning to release the game solely on Switch 2. While it has been rumored that Metroid Prime 4 will receive a native release on Nintendo Switch 2, it’s unlikely that Nintendo would cancel the version of the game for the existing Switch.
One other possibility that some have noted could be tied to the price of Metroid Prime 4. All of these previous pre-orders for the game had been made at a value of $59.99. However, if Nintendo decides that it wants MP4 to retail for a more costly amount of $69.99, as it did with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, it may have opted to end all previous pre-orders.
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Perhaps the most likely option of all, though, might simply be that Nintendo is choosing to no longer do business with Amazon. This is something that has quietly started to happen over the past year as Nintendo has stopped making its own games available via the massive retailer. As such, these pre-orders for Metroid Prime 4 being canceled might only have to do with Amazon and nothing else.
Regardless of what the truth is, we should hear more about Metroid Prime 4 relatively soon. Nintendo tends to hold a Direct annually in February and assuming that this happens again in 2025, we’ll likely see MP4 in action at that time.
