 Retro Studios, yes folks, the makers of Metroid Prime 1, Metroid Prime 2, Metroid Prime 3, and who could forget Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and the Return Game as well. 5, Stellar Games from Nintendo's only wholly owned western video game studio, yes. This is a Nintendo owned studio. We've known this for a long time. We've also known that they haven't put a game out in 6 years. It's been a hell of a long time. We know that in 2019, they took over, at least as of the announcement in January of 2019, that they took over development of Metroid Prime 4, which was originally being developed by a completely different studio, leaving us to wonder what the hell Retro Studios has been working on all these years, why haven't we seen it, why have they failed? Retro Studios has been hiring some of the best talent in the industry over the last year or so. They've been bringing on a lot of top tier people with lots of experience with games like Call of Duty, Doom, The Grand Theft Auto series, Red Dead Redemption, a whole bunch of best in class games. They have been dragging that talent into Retro Studios over the last year. They have done such a fantastic job of getting this talent there that Nintendo and Retro Studios are making a massive overhaul investment in the actual studio itself, like the place that they work, which is crazy when we're in the middle of a pandemic and people are probably working from home and aren't even in studio. But here is the story. Here's the original source. No confusion here. There was original reports coming out here that, hey, they're buying a new place. They're not actually buying a new place. They're investing in their current location. So here is what we got. So this comes from Intelligence 360 News. They are the OG source of this. And it says Retro Studios to spend $530,362. That's a pretty exact figure there, to occupy 37,335 square feet of space in Austin, Texas, which is where Retro Studios is located right now. According to state and local economic development sources, Retro Studios plans to invest that money that I mentioned before in a new space in Austin. The company plans to occupy the new space at 12345 North Lamar Boulevard, which by the way, is their current location. They say sweet 300. That is their current location. So they're not moving. That is where they're already located. And they're going to be completing this and using the space as of May 1st, 2021. According to the company website found in 1998, Retro Studios is holding on subsidiary of Nintendo. And then it goes into talking about all this stuff. Now why are they doing this? Why are they expanding? After all, Retro Studios has never had a problem in the past. Why suddenly now do they need to invest $530,000 to expand their studio into a much grander space? Well, clearly they need more space for these hires. They want to be more modern and up to date. And I think that there's a plan with Retro Studios to continually get them making games at a better pace than they've been able to before. I think when they're done with Metroid Prime 4, they're not just going to suddenly fire all these new hires. I think they're planning to try to entice these hires to stay on for the next Metroid game or the next big title or whatever. Maybe they bring back a project they started during these six years and actually finish it. You know, there's that rumored Star Fox racing game, but maybe there's a wholly unique IP being worked on behind the scenes there. I think when Nintendo decides to invest half a million dollars in remodeling a space like this to add more space to it. Because their current space is I think less than 30,000 square feet, so they are adding space to the studio. It makes you realize that clearly Nintendo has long haul plans for Retro Studios. And those plans are going to be about making AAA style games for quite some time. And with the massive talent they're bringing in, Nintendo is paying a premium here. Nintendo wants top tier Western talent at Retro Studios. They want to expand Retro Studios. I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to start having two or three teams even at Retro Studios after Metroid Prime 4 is done working on different projects and really trying to turn them into a premium Western development resource. Not unlike Blizzard, not unlike DICE or other major studios, Rockstar. I think Nintendo wants us to be their main source of creating Nintendo quote unquote first party, they wholly own Retro Studios but they didn't always own them, quote unquote first party Western style games. And they're looking beyond Metroid Prime 4 with this. They were just concerned about Metroid Prime 4, they wouldn't need to remodel. But they are looking beyond Metroid Prime 4 into what comes next. They who knows, maybe we're going to get a massive Western style RPG from Nintendo out of the studio. Maybe we're going to get a new brand new Western military shooter out of this. Who knows what we are going to get but Nintendo and the people working at Retro. There are clearly plans to do more and when you're bringing in top tier talent that has made some of the industry's defining games year over year, I mean come on we have someone who worked on Red Dead Redemption, clearly Nintendo is looking into making this one of the primary studly studios in all of the west. And the thing is Retro Studios already has a pretty good reputation thanks to Metroid Prime Trilogy and the Donkey Kong games but if we're honest here, they haven't really made a massive hit. We think about it, the best selling game made by Retro Studios is what maybe Metroid Prime 1 which sold 4 billion copies and is the most popular Metroid game ever made which is nothing to scoff at but where is their mega hit, where is their 10 million plus seller. Nintendo has a number of studios that make these mega hits from the Zeldas and the Mario's, even Kirby every now and then it gets really big numbers like Smash Bros. They get these mega hit studios or mega hit games, Retro Studios hasn't had that mega hit, that game that transcends the core fan base of a specific franchise. So I think Nintendo is looking at this as we want to make sure that Retro Studios is perfectly outfitted for modern development, the ability to hold on to these hires like we do in Japan and create games at a more consistent faster pace. So we're not waiting six to, by the time we see Metroid Prime 4, it's going to be seven, eight years between games. I don't think Nintendo wants it to be normal at Retro Studios. They want to fix what's broken there and we aren't sure what's broken. Maybe it was a management issue, maybe it was a talent issue. They lost, I think it was like one third of the developers at the studio after Metroid Prime 3 concluded and then they worked on two smaller Donkey Kong games which that's nothing to scoff at. They're some of the best side scrolling 2D platformers there is. But again, it feels like we can get more from a western owned Nintendo studio than just something that they could make in Japan. Let's just be honest, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and the other Donkey Kong Country Returns, those games could have been made in Japan. They're very Nintendo-esque. Yes, they pay great homage to the old Rare LTD days, but it doesn't matter. We want to see more. We want this company to be like Rare. Where's its unique IP and conquer? Banjo-Kazooie, where is Retro Studios feather in the cabinet? We are a major player in the West. Here's our flag in the mud and we're staking claim that Nintendo has quality AAA western games made in-house that you can only play on Nintendo platforms. Nintendo has games like that from Japan, the Breath of the Wilds of the World. Where is the major western ones? Well, it's going to come internally. Retro Studios is perfectly positioned with the talent they have, talent they likely are going to attain, and talent that they hope to keep. To keep making big games. Yes, they want to do Metroid Prime right, but they're thinking beyond that and what's to come down the line. And I'm excited. I've never been more excited, to be honest, over Retro Studios than I am right now today. So are you excited for Retro Studios as well? Do you see this expansion and remodeling as Nintendo stepping up its game, hoping to keep employees instead of having them bail after the project and get them working on the next big thing? I hope so. Anyways, I am Nathaniel Rubblejantz from Nintendo Prime. I want to thank you guys all for tuning in. Mr. Pumpkin back there just reminding you, it's Halloween maybe. Woo! It's one of my favorite holidays actually. Although I'm not even dressing up this year. For those wondering, my children, let's see, my children are my daughter's Pikachu. My youngest son is Spider-Man. And my middle child, Aiden, is dressing up as Leonardo. Now, are we doing trick-or-treating traditionally? Probably not. Can't even visit all the grandparents. We actually might have a grandparent that has COVID. So we got to be keeping them in our thoughts and prayers over here. But thank you guys. See you guys later. Stay safe today if you end up going out trick-or-treating. I know it's really hard to be safe when we're talking about getting candy from strangers from places that are allowing that. But I don't know what to tell you guys. You know, you do you, I'm going to do me. And we're all going to get through this pandemic together. All right, folks, catch you in the next video.