 So something interesting appears to be going on at Nintendo, and I don't know what this has to do with the Switch Pro, or what exactly this means, but they're hiring someone who a senior multiplayer networking software engineer is the exact title. And the person they're hiring will be responsible for researching designing and prototyping online multiplayer gaming architectures, documenting proposed architectures and developing operating system network features. So basically a bunch of online stuff dealing with online networking with video games and online systems. And that in that of itself doesn't mean much because Nintendo has a whole bunch of online games and okay whatever right like who really cares about that. But it's interesting when you look at the summary of requirements if you actually glance deep into it not only do you need your degree and five years of experience in all that jazz. It also says you need experience developing an online multiplayer game using a major game engine. And then it gives examples of those game engines such as Unreal, Unity, Lumberyard and Cry Engine. Now Nintendo has already used Unreal in games like Link's Awakening. I believe Yoshi's Craft of World as well was built in Unreal Engine 4. So that is an engine Nintendo does have some experience with and clearly has been using internally. Unity is obviously an engine that everyone in the world seems to have experienced with from Indies all the way up to AAA Studios. That's one of the most popular engines if not the de facto most popular engine in the world for video games. So seeing those listed on there is expected. But then Lumberyard and Cry Engine as far as we're aware there are no Lumberyard or Cry Engine games actually on Switch. There was a Cry Engine game at one point that was supposedly ported to Wii U. Never got released. But Cry Engine has been around for quite some time dating all the way back to the crisis games. And it's a very demanding engine but it's also a little bit older. And Lumberyard kind of is like a spin-off sort of. It's owned by Amazon and Lumberyard is not something that we hear about too often because there hasn't been any major games released using Lumberyard as far as I'm aware. Correct me if I'm wrong. But Lumberyard is interesting that that's even mentioned just because of the minimum requirements for to run the Lumberyard engine. So as an example you need at least a 3 gigahertz quad core processor. That's well beyond what the switch is running at. Eight gigabytes of RAM. Switch only has four. Two gigabyte minimum direct X11 or later compatible video card. Well beyond what the switch is providing. An Nvidia driver, AMD driver exited a 60 gigabytes of free space that could obviously be reduced in some ways and the switch only has 32 gigabytes of free space. So and to compile it you need at least 14 gigabytes of RAM. That's more on the development side. That's something that people use in it. Maybe they can get a specially designed development switch to do that with. But that's a funeral there. Three gigahertz, eight gigabytes of RAM, two gigabytes of video memory and 60 gigabytes of available space to even run the engine. It's a pretty beefy, pretty new engine. It's only been around for three years. And when you hear specs like that and you hear that Nintendo is looking for someone who has experience with an engine like that, it makes you wonder what the hell is going on because switch can't handle that. At least not switch as we know it but could a switch pro could a switch to this could potentially and this is very hypothetical. This could potentially be hinting at the sort of specs that we could expect in a switch pro and or a switch to you know, three gigahertz quad core processors, eight gigabytes of RAM minimum, you know, two gigabytes of video memory, whatever video memory is probably an Nvidia card. This is very possibly the first hint we've had at anything to do with switch pro in quite some time or switch to because Nintendo hires people all the time. If you go through the hiring page, you can find a lot of little nuggets in there that you can kind of draw some conclusions from. But this is the first time Lumberyard has been brought up. Cry Engine as well. Oh, Cry Engine doesn't isn't as intensive to run. People are wondering the requirements for Cry Engine today require like a dual core two gigahertz processor four gigabytes of RAM, you know, we're looking at one gigabyte of GDR five VRAM, you know, which is like a GeForce 450 kind of thing, eight gigabytes of hardware, like it's a much easier to run Cry Engine. And since there was a Cry Engine game running a Wii U, it's really believable that I know a Cry Engine game crisis three or whatever could come over to switch. But the Lumberyard thing I find to be very interesting, because that's the one where you're starting to talk specs that are well beyond what a switch is capable of. Now, obviously, just because that's the minimum requirements of that particular engine doesn't mean there can't be a custom version of that engine created specifically for switch that maybe doesn't have quite all of the features but just has some of them. But it's just weird that Nintendo is looking for it. Now, obviously, this is, you know, overlooking the fact that they said, you know, experience developing an online multiplayer game using a major game engine and that these are just four examples. They're not saying the person even has to have experience with Lumberyard or Cry Engine. But it is interesting that Nintendo considers those four platforms to basically be major game engines that they would be in consideration for an online multiplayer game. Because as we said, Unreal in Unity doesn't surprising, but Lumberyard and Cry Engine is stuff that we're not aware Nintendo's ever used in anything. So if they're considering using Lumberyard or Cry Engine in future games, it gives you an idea of maybe some specs that Nintendo's targeting for future switches and the technology that could be behind some massive game that might not be out for four or five years. So I find this just to be extremely interesting. If you look at the rest of the summary requirements for this position that they're hiring, you'll see that they understand various game networking models and the pros and cons of each. This obviously has to do with developing operating system network features, you know, where this person might be helping out with online game in some way, but they're also going to be working on the network itself. Experience developing gameplay systems around network replication, experience working with external APIs and SDKs, strong skills in C and C++. If you guys ever want to become like a game developer, C and C++ is basically a requirement. So that's something you want to make sure you focus on in your programming studies. C sharp used to be a big thing back in the day, but people don't use that so much in video games. Algorithms, all the threaded software development, understanding networking fundamentals, including TCP IP socket programming that this really basic stuff. But you do you learn about that. You know, basically, you have a degree in computer science, computer engineering or electrical engineering, you're going to know about that basic networking stuff. So the preferred skills are an experience or interest in back end server software development, familiarity with REST APIs and real time embedded software development. So it's just it's a very interesting position. It's a strictly software development position. You know, as I said, it is a senior multiplayer networking software. And they're looking for someone to help out with their multiplayer games, looking for someone to help out with the networking side of it, and to obviously help incorporate online infrastructure into their some into one or several multiplayer games that happen to be using engines like Unreal, Unity, Lumberyard or CryEngine. And that's just four examples. I'm sure there's other ones as well. Nintendo hasn't doesn't have like one universal engine they use for everything, you know, like EA has the frostbite engine they're trying to use on everything, you know, that you've seen Ubisoft and Anvil in the past and stuff like that. So a lot of big studios had to have like that one engine they turn to and it seems like Nintendo doesn't really have one engine, they kind of develop a new engine for each IP. And they don't really talk about it as an example, Breath of the Wild runs on its own engine. We don't know what that engine is that except that Nintendo built it. So it's really interesting. So again, Lumberyard is kind of the big deal here. That's the one that's pointing out that, you know, you need a quad core processor that's at least three gigs, you need twice the amount of RAM switch has, you need a lot more video RAM than switch has, etc. A lot more storage space as well. So I am I'm excited about what that prospect could be. I know I haven't as I don't have a lot of examples of Lumberyard to know what we can realistically expect from such an engine. But I do think that it's very interesting. I do think it's something that we need to be looking at as a potential hint at specs for a future switch model of some type be it a pro, be it a switch to whatever it ends up being. I'm not saying that this particular person who gets hired will ever end up working with Lumberyard or that Nintendo will ever end up using Lumberyard. But for them to even have that as a consideration for their platform means that Nintendo obviously must have future plans because current switch at least as it's constructed now as Lumberyard is anyways, it's just not going to work on the current switch. And one thing to always remember when we talk about speculative hiring posts and stuff like this is that Nintendo is always looking to the future. They're always developing what's next. So I know some people get tired of why you talking about switch pro why are you talking about this and we just enjoy switch for it is look at the amazing games coming out you absolutely can and absolutely should be. But it is one of those situations where Nintendo is always developing what's next and we obviously we've had a lot of smoke around switch pro over the past couple years. You know some people wondering if we're just going to skip a pro and go to switch to you know in a year or two here. And what what do we really have to hint at what we can expect for performance because that's what people want to know. And this is kind of the first hint that if Nintendo is planning on running Lumberyard on their hardware. Well it needs to be basically twice as powerful as what it is now. If not more so so just something to keep in mind something to just kind of log in the back of your brain if a switch pro or a switch to is announced you know some time in the future. And they give us an idea of the specs and I don't Nintendo kind of dances around the specs but when we find out what the specs are if it happens to be pretty close to what Lumberyard requires. Yeah remember you kind of go back to this video and remember hey this is kind of where I maybe heard that Lumberyard was the first hint at what those specs were. So just something to log in your memory. Big shout out to Super Metal Dave. He put out a video actually this morning I believe I haven't even watched the full video. But I went to his sources in there and that's where I saw this hiring post. So that's I think the basis for his video as well as that hiring post so I'll put a link down to his channel and his video as well if you guys want to see a deeper dive into some of the speculative side of what's happening with switch pro and all that stuff because he does a lot of great videos diving into these hiring posts diving into these scenarios that you can kind of infer based on things happening behind the scenes but things are always changing behind the scenes so you never really know you know just because they mentioned Lumberjack here doesn't mean there's ever going to be a engine that engine's ever going to run on switch or anything but I don't know I think it's just nice to think about nice to imagine a switch that can perform at these system requirement levels and I hope you really enjoyed this video I am Nathanian Robledance from The Tender Prime. Be sure to drop a like on this video subscribe for more content you guys know I love each and every one of your faces watching this show so I'll catch you in the next video.