this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
138 points (90.1% liked)

Nintendo

18513 readers
64 users here now

A community for everything Nintendo. Games, news, discussions, stories etc.

Rules:

  1. No NSFW content.
  2. No hate speech or personal attacks.
  3. No ads / spamming / self-promotion / low effort posts / memes etc.
  4. No linking to, or sharing information about, hacks, ROMs or any illegal content. And no piracy talk. (Linking to emulators, or general mention / discussion of emulation topics is fine.)
  5. No console wars or PC elitism.
  6. Be a decent human (or a bot, we don't discriminate against bots... except in Point 7).
  7. All bots must have mod permission prior to implementation and must follow instance-wide rules. For lemmy.world bot rules click here

Upcoming First Party Games (NA):

Game | Date

|

Mario & Luigi: Brothership | Nov 7 Donkey Kong Country Returns HD | Jan 16, 2025 Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition | Mar 20, 2025 Metroid Prime 4 | 2025

Other Gaming Communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
138
Switch 2 hinted for an early 2024 launch (gamerant.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
79 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

Let's look at the track record.

Backwards compatible handhelds:

  • GameBoy Colour (to GB)
  • Gameboy Advance (to GBC)
  • Nintendo DS (to GBA)
  • Nintendo 3DS (to DS)

Home consoles:

  • Wii (to GC)
  • Wii U (to Wii)

Not backwards compatible:

  • SNES
  • VirtualBoy
  • Nintendo 64
  • GameCube
  • Switch

Lack of backwards compatibility to the previous generation has usually followed from a change in media format, and even then there has been a willingness to make an effort (the DS with its two slots being the prime example). Backwards compatibility seems to be a good way to ensure a wide selection of games at launch, and the negative aspect (not being able to sell the re-releases of the same games yet again to those desperate enough) seems to be outweighed by the positive (availability of games at launch; maintained interest in games from previous generation).

There's no real reason for Switch cartridges to grow any smaller, and I doubt they'll go back to discs. So I would say there's a pretty good chance of backward compatibility.