It's the Prime 4 bit I'm laughing at.
Only because I think Retro is planning to release the rest of the original trilogy remastered and re-res'd for Switch first to let things set in before dropping the bomb that is Prime 4.
Not the kind of speculation I should be doing this topic, but releasing each previously installment for different halves of the year sounds like a hurried but practical pace, depending on how well received the sales of the first are but I can't speak for Retro or what the actual plan may be.
I don't think that will be happening. I mean, it makes sense, but that's apparently not how things worked out.
Here's a resetera post from September 2021 from someone who clearly knew what was going on:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/ni...ders-corroborate.490360/page-11#post-73958365
Basically, after Tropical Freeze, Retro Studios started working on a new title. But it was cancelled and everything was thrown out. Nintendo then tasked Retro Studios with remaking the entire Metroid Prime trilogy for Nintendo Switch.
However, this largely involved the art team, but not so much other parts of Retro, like the designers. Nintendo noticed that Namco was struggling to put together a Prime game that would hold up compared to the previous games, so Nintendo had parts of Retro Studios assist Namco with Prime 4.
After a while, Nintendo saw the amazing progress Retro was doing with the remake, as well as the level design for Prime 4. At that point, they asked themselves why they didn't just have Retro do Prime 4 to begin with. That's when we got the January 2019 video from Nintendo that full development of the title was moving to Retro Studios.
This person stated that the plan became for Retro to finish up MP Remastered (which they did in September 2021), and then have other studios work on remastering MP 2 and 3. But they weren't confident on that plan with respect to MP2 and 3.
Jeff Grubb and Nate have both said they have heard that the MP2 and 3 remasters will be more like typical remasters, ie, standard HD upscales without all the extra work that went into MP Remasterd. Again, that's what they both heard about a year ago, and are unsure if things have changed.
So....MP 2 and 3 are most likely coming at some point and in some form. But, there's a good chance it's not done by Retro, and a good chance they're not done at the same quality as the MP Remaster. Everything we know is that the MP Remaster finished in September 2021, and the rest of Retro has been working on MP4 since late 2018/early 2019. I don't know that Nintendo would burden them with remakes of MP 2 and 3 when they're right in the middle of MP4 development.
Personally, I would not expect MP 2 and 3 before Metroid Prime 4. Retro Studios has been at this since late 2018/early 2019. We're at 4 years right now. 4.5 years by fall 2023. It's time. Nate and MVG said the reason Nintendo held onto Prime Remastered for almost 18 months was because they wanted to release it near the MP4 release date to get people reacquainted with the franchise before MP4 hits. And that certainly makes sense.
My hope is that MP Remastered sells so well that it impels Nintendo to remake the other two games at the same level of quality, and will task Retro Studios to work on those after they ship Metroid Prime 4.