They need to chill on releasing new generation consoles for a while (All of them, not just Nintendo). Give the current generation time for the game devs to fully utilize them. This constant upgrade in hardware for consoles is getting rather tired.
I kinda doubt they wouldn’t, to be honest. Both the Wii and Wii U had one generation of backwards-compatibility. The Switch didn’t probably due to a combination of the form factor and the fact that nobody had Wii U games anyways. Also, the PS5 and Series X/S both have backwards-compatibility. There are issues with the classic console lifecycle, but this one has been solved for awhile now.
In what world would you expect it to NOT be compatible with Switch cartridges?
Game Boy, Color, Advance - backwards compatible
GameCube, Wii - backwards compatible
Wii - Wii U - backwards compatible
DS - DSi - 3DS - N3DS - backwards compatible
For all their faults, Nintendo have been strong with backwards compatibility for 30+ years, the only exceptions being the SNES (NES backwards compatibility existed initially but was dropped), N64 (fucking complex custom architecture and final cart based console) and Virtual Boy (lol)
This is 7 years now since the launch of the switch. That’s longer than the period between the NES western launch to the SNES 1985-1991, longer than SNES to the N64 (1991-1996), longer than the N64 to the GameCube (1996 - 2001), longer than GameCube to the Wii (2001 - 2006), Wii to Wii U ( 2006 to 2012) and Wii U to Switch (2012 - 2017)
The ONLY exception being the OG Gameboy to GBC, 9 years.
For their handhelds they have an excellent history of backwards compatibility - but for consoles it’s only the Wii generation where we saw it. People are nervous because Nintendo didn’t make the Switch backwards compatible and because it’s technically complex to make something backwards compatible with the nVidia hardware in the Switch.
I really hope, and strongly think Nintendo SHOULD, make the Switch 2 backwards compatible but I won’t be surprised if it’s not.
I mean that since 1983 (I’ll be generous and exclude the Color TV-Game era) through seven console generations only the Wii and WiiU were backwards compatible with the previous console which covers 11 years. That’s 28.5% of consoles and 27.5% of years. Not great odds.
I believe it is sarcasm, but with the death of E3 anything is possible.
That said, I’d say it is more likely to see Nintendo announce it at the Tokyo Game Show instead. (This would put it at late September, which is right around when the Switch was revealed back in 2016.)
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