 Yes folks, we're talking about Metroid Prime 4 and yes, it very well could be coming next year based on our new update from Retro Studios but before we get into this update, before we even talk about it, I got to remind you, we have a couple giveaways going on. The first is for a Nintendo Switch, a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox Series X. The second and maybe more important one is for Pikmin 3 Deluxe. We're giving away two copies of that game, go down in the description to find out how to enter these giveaways. I wish everyone luck. We're also on our road to 100,000 subscribers. If we hit 100k in 2020, we'll have a massive giveaway in January. It'll be over $1,000 worth of stuff, 100 winners to celebrate 100k. Let's see if we can do it. I know, gotta get the 70k first, 62k first, I get it but whatever, we're gonna get there. I have faith. Alright, so Metroid Prime 4 is one of the biggest enigmas at Nintendo. It was originally being developed by, we believe to be, never technically confirmed by Nintendo, Bandai Namco. And Bandai Namco had multiple teams reportedly across all their different studios, kind of working on this game at the same time and then, you know, trying to piece it all together. Nintendo didn't like the progress that game was making and Retro Studios made a pitch to Nintendo. Remember, this was announced, Metroid Prime 4 was announced at E3 2017. So fast forward to the end of 2018, beginning of 2019, and Nintendo decides to change development of this game and reboot it because Retro Studios made a pitch, which for those that don't know, a pitch is not just an idea board, it's kind of like a semi-playable small level or whatever that was submitted to Nintendo by Retro Studios who has not put out a game since Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. They were not tabbed to make this game because it was thought that Retro Studios was already working on a game or a couple games, whether or not those games ever see the light of day, I don't know, but Retro Studios was tabbed to reboot this game, and it makes sense because Retro Studios made the original Metroid Prime trilogy. So Retro Studios has been hiring a ton of people, a ton of people this year, a lot of high quality hires. They made people feel like this game must be pretty far off because, hey, why would you have all of these high quality hires for people you would like to have on the project very early if this game was nowhere near ready? Or near ready, I guess I should say. However, Retro Studios apparently might be ready to put out Metroid Prime 4 for the 35th anniversary of Metroid next year. Think about how huge this would be, the potential of getting Breath of the Wild 2, Metroid Prime 4, and who knows a new Mario game, whether it's Mario Odyssey 2 or Mario Kart 9 or something next year, that would be a trilogy of amazingness happening next year. Retro Studios is hiring again, now they're always hiring, but they added three new positions about one week ago. And this kind of flew under the radar because I wasn't sure what it meant, but it's much clearer now. And credit goes out to Super Metal Dave64 who initially put out a video about this. I'll link to his video down below because he started the speculation train going and I started realizing something here. Retro Studios is hiring three product testers. For those who don't know what product testers are, they're QA testers, they're quality control testers. So if you look at the description of duties, it says develop and execute test plans to confirm developer requirements and discover defects in pre-release software, create detailed reports of defects for development staff on a daily basis, test and verify resolved defects to ensure quality control, maintaining and updating development hardware for staff, identify and execute testing with minimal guidance, work closely with retro productions and development staff to debug issues, assist in testing in-house tools, use in development ensures defects are properly tracked. Now, the big thing is they aren't just looking for any QA testers off the street. No, no, no. They want you to have four plus years of quality assurance experience preferred, and they prefer or do require that you are experienced at working on shipping AAA titles. So they don't want just any Joe Schmo off the street. They want someone with four plus years of experience working on quality testing and testing out AAA games. You have to have excellent knowledge of the video game industry, working knowledge of video game development processes, throttle knowledge of Nintendo and competitive products preferred, ability to efficiently and effectively identify software problems, PC skills, that's just, you know, common Excel word, JIRA, Confluence, video capture software, etc. Understanding of technical libraries used in video game development, excellent organizational interpersonal skills and previous experience with file management, bug tracking and product testing is required. This is a contract position, which pretty much every position at Retro Studios is, they're hiring three of them. We don't know for how long this hiring period is, is it a year? But here's the thing, you do not hire product testers that work outside of the development team, unless you have a playable build of the game ready to go. This means that at some point before the end of this year, Retro Studios is planning to have a playable build of Metroid Prime 4 from start to finish, ready to go. Now, this is a playable build. This is not ready to go out to the public kind of build. This is not gone gold. This isn't, oh my God, Metroid Prime 4 is coming out in January. It's none of that. But what it does mean is that Metroid Prime 4 is much further along in development than all of us thought because I was projecting maybe 2022 at the earliest 2023, if you want to wishful think, but that's not the case. That's not the case because see, if they're already QA testing, if they're already testing out playable builds of Metroid Prime 4, guys, it's coming next year because if you look at the history of AAA development, the moment quality testers are brought in, it's about one year later that the games tend to come out, barring any unforeseen delays. So Metroid Prime 4 looks like it is on target for 2021. If I had to guess holiday 2021 or end of summer 2021, either way, we're going to see Metroid Prime 4. We're going to finally have its reveal trailer in early 2021, if not at E3 2021, assuming E3 happens or a Nintendo Direct. However, Nintendo decides to do it, maybe they just drop a trailer online, like they've done for other games like Paper Mario and Age of Calamity. I have no idea. We have no idea how Nintendo is going to announce this. We only know that it's going to happen. So get hyped, get excited, folks, because I finally feel confident enough to believe that Metroid Prime 4 is actually going to be happening sometime in the next year. This is so exciting because, man, oh man, is this awesome. In fact, it was so awesome, I actually turned it into an application for product testing because I actually have some product testing experience. However, I don't have the requisite amount of years that they require. So I probably won't get hired. And even if I did, I'm not moving my whole family out to Austin, Texas to work 15 bucks an hour and barely get by because it's pretty expensive to live out there. But it's just like, I'm just so excited about this. I am glad, beyond thrill, that we could be playing Metroid Prime 4 next year, let alone the Metroid Prime trilogy. It is the 35th anniversary of Metroid. We've been talking a lot about the 35th anniversary of Zelda. And we did think maybe for the 35th anniversary of Metroid, we would get the Metroid Prime trilogy or maybe like another 2D side scrolling Metroid or something. But hiring quality testers now means this game should go gold by summer sometime next year. And holy crap, Retro Studios got this done in a hurry. Maybe all the hires they've been making throughout this year were all about getting this project wrapped up and as polished as possible. It's entirely possible. All these quality AAA hires are temporary one or two year contracts that they were hoping to have to polish this game and get it from being almost playable to out the door. This is exciting, exciting news. And my gosh, folks, I hope you are just beaming as much as I am right now. If you're a Metroid fan, it has to be really exciting to know that Retro Studios is hiring these quality testers. This is awesome. I am with Andy Robojans from Nintendo Prime. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll catch you in the next video.