 Today we're going to talk about Metroid Prime 4 and also the Nintendo Switch doing something very very interesting that at least for me is surprising especially giving the current landscape of games but also does show that the Nintendo Switch at least for now is still doing extremely well in certain markets. Now before we dive into this I just want to remind you guys that we are on our road to 133,000 subscribers. We're getting closer and closer every day. Thank you so much for all of that support. I am trying to do YouTube full-time so I appreciate when people subscribe to the channel drop likes and all of that. It just helps me on my journey helps me inspire others and frankly I'm just very very thankful for where I already am and you guys make it all possible so thank you so much. Alright let's get into this and talk first about what's going on with Metroid Prime 4. So look I've been told behind the scenes that Metroid Prime 4 is basically done. That's just what I've been told now this is by a single source so I haven't really made a video on that because I prefer to have multiple independent sources on stuff like this so while I do trust where I was told this information it is still something that I have to question because I don't have multiple sources and the reality is that Retro Studios is supposedly still hiring for Metroid Prime 4 which would suggest the game's not done or at least isn't fully polished. Let's say they hiring people to help polish the game. So I got this headline from my Nintendo news and it says Retro Studios continues its hiring speed for Metroid Prime 4 and it says Nintendo announced back in 2019 that Retro Studios would be handling Metroid Prime 4 as the Austin-based company was rebooting the highly anticipated next 3D Samus Iran adventure. Today the company has nine roles unfulfilled on their Nintendo careers page with all of them stating at the bottom blurb that Retro Studios is currently in the midst of developing Metroid Prime 4 for Nintendo Switch. Now there is a possibility that Retro Studios may be working on an additional project but it seems likely Nintendo will want to get Metroid Prime 4 out the door as soon as possible as the project was announced six years ago and sure enough when you look at their job opening page and you go through all of their job openings they do in fact mention Metroid Prime 4. So this would suggest at least partially that they are hiring for Metroid Prime 4. It's also possible that people are misinterpreting this and they're really just using Metroid Prime 4 as a hey we're working on games like Metroid Prime 4 you should come and work at our place. The hardest thing for studios like Retro Studios to do when they're hiring people is try to entice people to apply when they can't talk about the projects they're working on. Now the one project that is public is Metroid Prime 4. So they you know including Metroid Prime 4 and all of their hiring posts literally could just be to entice people to come through the door apply and then through the interview process maybe they learn more maybe they learn they won't be working on Metroid Prime 4 but whatever they're working on next maybe they got to sign an NDA yada yada yada so I find this to be very interesting because I don't know that any of these hiring are specifically for well Metroid Prime 4 because again I've been told the game is done so it'd be weird if they were hiring things like concept artists and a senior and external environmental artists like why why would they need something like that the game is already done that's why this stuff could be for the next game and they're just using Metroid Prime 4 to help hire but we can't dismiss the fact that it's possible they are hiring for Metroid Prime 4 and that Metroid Prime 4 is still a ways away if we presume they rebooted development in 2019 then it's only been four years so in theory it could be another one two maybe three years before we see Metroid Prime 4 after all AAA games are taking longer and longer and longer to develop we saw that with tears of the kingdom so we'll just have to wait and see if Mario right now is the next big Mario game going to come right now one thing we do know is as a fact are sales numbers and some interesting stuff is happening over in Japan so we have the sales numbers for last week and yes tears of the kingdom is still number one a beat out Diablo 4 showing obviously that Diablo 4 isn't necessarily as big of a deal in all regions now it actually is quite close when you combine all sales of Diablo 4 together so when you combine the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and Xbox Series X version which this might be the best-selling Xbox Series X game yet at launch anyways it does come really close to tears of the kingdom but still tears of the kingdom will remain number one even when all versions are combined one that's super impressive for tears of the kingdom selling one million six hundred and forty thousand units like that is just absolutely insane and beyond Diablo 4 it's mostly a bunch of games in the top ten besides Street Fighter 6 chiming in at number eight but what I find to be actually really fascinating is the hardware sales because obviously tears of the kingdom is selling less and less every single week there wasn't a brand new switch game release and yet hardware sales nearly doubled last week so switch old and sold seventy four thousand three hundred and forty seven units but then you have the base Nintendo switch chiming in with sixteen thousand one hundred and sixty one units in the switch light at number four thirteen thousand nine hundred and five if you combine all of that together yes folks the switch itself the family of system sold over a hundred thousand units in Japan last week in a week without any new releases in the middle of the seventh year of the platform and with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X out there in particular PlayStation 5 you know chiming in around forty two thousand units when you combine the digital and you know physical disc version together this is incredible that in the seventh year of switch because we are in the midst of the seventh year that they are able to move a hundred thousand units in a week when they have no new releases and PlayStation actually has a major release themselves now what does this mean well maybe maybe since the launch of tears of the kingdom it's possible it feels weird to say this but it is possible the switch could have been supply constrained so that is definitely something that may have been happening in Japan I haven't heard about any raffles or anything going on but it doesn't mean the supply hasn't necessarily been low especially of the OLED model now we know here in the United States it's been quite easy to get a switch OLED let alone any of the switches you know pretty much for several months now we haven't had any shortages but that doesn't necessarily mean it's been true in Japan and maybe the fact that we haven't had shortages is because they prefer to allocate units here in the United States or maybe other parts of Europe so hey this could have just been you know they couldn't meet demand for you know the switch at launch of Zelda and this is just catching up to that demand but it doesn't really matter what the reasoning is on whether they're just catching up to demand from when Zelda launched or if they're just you know seeing a natural increase because for some reason more people are excited for switch now than ever before which is interesting considering that Pikmin 4 is the next big game and that Pikmin's never been a big game in Japan or maybe they're just excited for some of the third-party games you know we did get some interesting announcements I don't know how much this would have impacted sales but things like the Persona 5 stuff which we didn't really find out till this week but Persona 5 Tattica is coming to Nintendo switch but you know Sonic Superstars is coming to switch as well so who knows you know Mortal Kombat 1 who really knows what made you know Japanese gamers want to run out last week and buy a hundred thousand switches but what we do know is that is an incredible number and something we typically were only seeing from the switch during its heyday or during major game launches so sure during the pandemic during major launches we would regularly see the switch top 100,000 sometimes approaching 200,000 but the switch hasn't really topped 100,000 in a while not even at launch of Zelda so I do find it fascinating that it's doing it right now and it does show the incredible legs of the platform now we all know nothing lasts forever Nintendo is projecting overall sales drop this year compared to last year and just because the switch is doing you know maybe a bit better than expected at this point in Japan doesn't mean it's necessarily doing better than expected worldwide also the further and further out we get from the Zelda launch and without Nintendo having any other system seller dropping at least that we're aware of you know sales are going to start dwindling off as we get closer and closer to the holiday and the other platform start getting their major games out as an example I suspect to see a major bump in sales for PlayStation 5 when Final Fantasy 16 launches this summer so here's the way I'm looking at this right now this is really good for switch it's showing that there's still a healthy market for the platform we know there's a healthy market for game sales for the platform we don't even need Japan to know that we know how incredibly well tears of the kingdom is sold and how well other switch games are selling right now breath of the wild jumping back into the top 10 so that doesn't mean we're not going to get a new platform this year or next year I do think that Nintendo is still going to do that sometime in the next 18 months and this is mostly because just because the platform is healthy doesn't mean you want to milk it until it's not that is a mistake Nintendo has made many many times in the past and Furukawa stated many times he doesn't want to fall off the cliff well you will fall off the cliff if you milk the success of switch too long while it's still relevant while people still want to buy games is the perfect time to drop a platform but you know what I don't work at Nintendo I don't know what they're doing I'm just excited to see the switch is still healthy still selling well and from a personal perspective well I'm a tech enthusiast and I love buying all the latest and greatest stuff I will say I'm pretty happy with switch right now and I'm not in any rush to go out and spend another $400 on yet another switch but I will if it does happen because I'll want it because I can't help myself thank you guys so much for tuning in and I'll catch you in the next video