Backwards Compatibility on Nintendo Switch 2

this is not the video I was originally making this week I had fully scripted a video for ideas for DLC for tears of the kingdom and just realized that this feels more pressing so subscribe and ring the bell if you want to make sure to see that video as soon as it goes up or join on patreon if you want to see it early probably very early because the script is done so let's get into it all signs are pointing to Nintendo after the constant and record-breaking success of their Nintendo switch era finally setting their sights on their next piece of hardware and with it the next chapter in their story but after the insane hardware and software sales and ipg growth throughout the switch era there is the possibility that the next Hardware doesn't carry that Legacy forward quite in the way that we'd hope but rather that they draw a line in the sand and hope that you and I and the rest of the switch audience casual and hardcore like would jump across potentially leaving this behind better said will Nintendo let you play your switch games on their next system or will we be starting completely from scratch let's talk about it foreign [Music] Ty meaning that while you can't play the new game on the old system the new system would play both the new and old games on the off chance that this might be your first time going through a console generation transition practically this is what that means I've got currently 125 hours in tears of the Kingdom which is a Nintendo switch game let's say in September of 2024 Nintendo releases what we'll currently call the Nintendo switch too even if it's not called that Super Nintendo switch whatever I know for sure I will buy that system but say I'm still playing tears of the Kingdom even then at which point I've got I don't know 400 hours in it I don't know maybe it's that DLC from the other video when I have the new system and whatever games it releases with my preference would be that I could continue playing tears of the Kingdom on the switch too maybe it runs a bit better or looks just a tad better just because the hardware is stronger or the screen is a higher resolution yeah that would be backwards compatibility just like when you upgrade from an iPhone 12 to an iPhone 14 and all of your same apps still work there it is backwards compatibility now it seems like this should be a super simple conversation especially when considering the example I just gave but it's not there's a lot of factors I think all this is really interesting and worth being aware of so that you're not surprised or too disappointed if the worst should happen but I'm gonna go ahead and tell you what I think will happen and then I'd love for you to stick around and hear the details around the reasons that the switch 2 probably will and probably won't have backwards compatibility so my honest guess please watch the rest of the video is that yeah the switch 2 will be able to play switch games there's a good few reasons that we'll talk about why that's still an uphill battle and I am only barely on that side of the fence but I think that's what will happen but I'm also prepared for the worst okay let's rip off the Band-Aid with the reasons why it might not happen there's a few and some of them are kind of gross this first one isn't gross though it's just a reality the Nintendo switch has an eShop store where games can be purchased and downloaded digitally or you can buy codes at a brick and mortar store and redeem them to download the game but of course there is also still a thriving physical media market for the switch anyone from collectors to Casual fans who want to pick up a game in the store to people buying games as a gift or even folks who want to be able to resell the game after they're done with it lots of people buy physical games especially on the switch and the games each come on a cartridge now Nintendo has done game cartridges plenty of times before their only consoles to not have done them were the GameCube the Wii and the Wii U and never once were the cartridges from One console to the next the same I'm sure this is a question of optimization of improving technology maybe cutting costs and of making sure that you don't put your N64 cartridge in an NES and then you know yell at customer service like why doesn't this work Ben needless to say the cartridges will probably change and granted all of their handhelds each with cartridges have been backwards compatible with the exception of the switch of course and we'll get to that aspect in a little bit it but putting that aside for now in the form factor of whatever the switch to ends up looking like is it possible to have a cartridge slot for a new physical format and also accommodate switch games whether that's a slot that reads both in some way or two different slots I don't know the answer to this but I could absolutely see it being a roadblock especially if they want to keep costs down and adding backwards compatibility here would cost them say 25 dollars per console I don't know is that a cost they want to pass down to the consumer or saw themselves but let's say that's either a problem they could solve or just not that big of a problem at all the next question is could switch games even be run natively on the console at all seems like a silly question the switch 2 would be stronger so of course it can run switch gains and I honestly would have thought so too and can't speak to the technical side of this which too much confidence but mvg made a great video that goes into these complications that you can check out for more details for our purposes here let's take the example of the PS3 it's two generations old but its games still can't be run natively on the PS5 not because the PS5 is strong enough but because it's such a different architecture and Hardware that it complicates it all Nintendo even solved this problem in the past in an interesting way the Wii U is backwards compatible with Wii games but rather than run a Wii Emulator to play those games Nintendo basically shoved a Wii inside the console as well so again this could be achieved for the switch too Nintendo could presumably put the Nvidia Marco chip from the switch inside the system and then you know it would run a check for which kind of game it's playing and switch between the socs accordingly or at least I assume they could but then the problem again arises that costs money so say each ship is 25 is that 25 out of your wallets or Nintendo's so neither of those two issues with backwards compatibility are gross like I'm mentioned they're just par for the course of innovating in the hardware space and having to contend with what you created before these next two would be real reasons that could happen and are either gross or maybe misinformed at best this comes straight from a rumor so we can take its legitimacy with tons of salt but the attitude behind it certainly checks out so I wouldn't doubt that it's a possibility Nintendo works with a lot of third-party Publishers Square Enix Bandai Namco EA Activision Bethesda Etc purportedly some of these Publishers have made it very clear that they don't want backwards compatibility on the switch too the reason money if Activision sold you Tony Hawk Pro Skater one and two on the switch and then you just got to play it on the switch too by dropping in the cartridge or redownloading it from the carried forward eShop then where is their money from that how do they get to sell you a new version of the same game the other side of the same coin that I think is probably the bigger aspect is why would I buy Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 and 4 collection on switch two if I'm still playing tears of the Kingdom or if AJ is still playing Smash and so on I'm working on a video on this next thought but the early days of the switch had a comparatively small install base you know the 130 million Now versus the 10 million in 2017 but the attach rate for games was obviously a lot higher and some of those games have gone on to stay really popular because they had the chance to cut through the small amounts of rubble that the eShop is now overrun by Third parties most likely want to be among the only show in town for the first little bit since you know right now they're the only ones who have development kits early and so on which I get but that's gross and the last reason backwards compatibility could not happen is maybe the most realistic and it's in case Nintendo learned the wrong lessons from their past to be frank I don't expect this to be the case I have more faith in their leadership than to expect them to do this or think this way but it's a real possibility nonetheless Nintendo's president Furukawa has said on many occasions how carefully and cautiously he's considering Nintendo's position even throughout their success and this is a great thing by most of the of the gaming companies have had a history of arrogance in the generation following a huge success and this has often been their downfall Sony's Playstation 2 is the best-selling Home console the PlayStation 3 launch was a nightmare because the PlayStation 3 debacle its competitor Xbox 360 did great and then the Xbox one had a terrible opening Nintendo's DS sales were huge then the 3DS was overpriced the Wii sales were enormous and the Wii U had no real identity and was a commercial failure but now the Nintendo switch has been tremendously successful and this is one of their first consoles in the longest time to have not had backwards compatibility mostly because it really just couldn't you can't play a disc on a switch to the Wii U is out and the 3DS has 3D and two screens so games have to be completely reworked to make sense on it the switch was starting from scratch and has sold so incredibly well that what if they take away the lesson that starting from scratch is part of the key to success and on the flip side the Wii U had backwards compatibility with their best selling Home console at the time the Wii and that didn't go well so you know backwards compatibility is bad and all all those lessons and reasons would be more ignorant than gross I think but there is also a possibility that they learned the lesson that porting Deluxe ports of Wii U games made them a lot of money and filled a lot of release gaps and seemed to make people you know pretty happy so they could cut backwards compatibility so that all switch games are now available to do with what they will so let's take inventory so far based on these thoughts alone The Narrative behind the scenes of Nintendo leaning towards no backwards compatibility on the switch 2 could look like this to achieve backwards compatibility it'll cost us 50 more dollars per console that would mean we'd increase the price and consumers would be less likely to pay assuming those Hardware Solutions are even feasible at all furthermore our business partners don't want us to do it and we need to stay in their good graces on top of that the last time we did backwards compatibility it didn't work out so great for our home console or handheld but this time when we didn't do it for the switch it worked out great and plus it would be really nice to sell breath of the wild DX next year legitimately possible it's probably not all those things and there may be some things that I'm not even considering but if the time comes and backwards compatibility isn't on the switch 2 it's probably several of those with a strong emphasis on one and will never know which but then there's the other stuff and to me this paints a very hopeful picture and one that feels just a little more realistic let's start with the hardware stuff since that's where we started before yes there will almost definitely be a new cartridge format for the next system also I'm positive that they will still have physical games at least for this generation but is that a hard stop problem I don't think so first of all every Nintendo handheld has gotten around this issue in the past even with cartridges holding more and more data each time so the two options seem to be either to have two cartridge slots which is what the initial DS's did with the Game Boy Advance slot or what I think is more likely which is that they have their Hardware developers find a good solution to where switch games can work on switch 2 within the same slot as switch 2 games and just not the other way around they could go with the 3DS and DS approach where the cartridges fit the same slot but a 3DS cartridge just won't work on a DS even if it fits or the Gameboy line approach with these each new system would change the format just enough to the old cartridges would fit in the new console but the new cartridges just wouldn't fit in the old one so like the new bump added on Game Boy Color games or the shorter design from the GBA games I think either could work and it's just up to Nintendo to figure out which to do next the soft queer side and this may be a legitimate problem I'm not sure I can't speak to the technical end of the software but I think there are business decisions that drive this and will inform what has to be figured out on the software end even if it's complicated namely Nintendo was shared on several of their financial updates that they intend for their Nintendo account system and with it Nintendo switch online to begin on the Nintendo switch and carry forward into their future specifically on their next system I could be reading into it but to me this is somewhat part and parcel with overall software carrying forward if my Nintendo account begins on the switch and the only thing that carries forward is my username association with that account and therefore the fact that I you know am allowed to use Nintendo switch online that doesn't feel worthy of a slide but the slide certainly applies to me since the target audience is their investors is that the audience that we're cultivating on the switch will set a baseline as we continue courting them into the future if your take is different than mine that's totally reasonable let me know in the comments but I think this reads at least partly as backwards compatibility and would be disingenuous if that's not what they intended by it similarly to talk about that third party aspect yes I can completely Envision third parties being upset that they're not the only ones in the party for the switch to assuming you can also buy switch games on it and carry them forward but this is now the industry standard and sure Nintendo doesn't always abide by that but I think where they usually stray from that path is stuff like achievements and Native voice chat and you know those kinds of features but not only is backwards compatibility an industry standard for gaming consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox series consoles but even beyond that into technology as a whole if you upgraded from an iPhone 12 to 14 like we said there's absolutely no world in which your new phone says I'm sorry your old apps were cool but those ones will stay on that phone and you can get some new ones if you want over here and it's been made abundantly clear that Nintendo is interested in the way that Apple does their kind of iteration and would like to lean into the same so not only is this a feat to their fire to do it from a business competitive sense but also they probably just want to for those reasons and to curb the shovelware issue on the new console you could easily just have a storefront for switch 2 games and another for switch games then everyone who wants to switch to but is still playing switch games can buy one and keep just keep plugging along until the switch 2 game that they want comes out not to mention how games themselves transition across this Gap the 3DS and switch transition was painful there were two years that the 3DS was still getting new games after the switch came out and it was hard seeing those games released to frustrated fans who were excited about the shiny new thing and didn't want the first half of an antenna direct to be focused on sub HD ports of Wii games on a dying console backwards compatibility can lead to a slow but really efficient cross generation I will buy a switch to within the launch window ideally on day one and if there are switch games that keep coming out for the next two years alongside a handful of switch 2 exclusive games then I would buy both on my switch too and enjoy the better performance of those as well as enjoy the new Switch games on the same system doesn't get a switch 2 right away they can keep buying switch games until they can't anymore at which point they can do the same transition as me but a couple years later not having backwards compatibility means segregating these two groups and making audiences and developers and Publishers decide which install base to develop to and that feels like a recipe for disaster because we've seen it and it was now to speak to our last negative point and whether the wrong lessons were learned is Nintendo coming out of the switch era overconfident cocky even my money is on no I think they're probably really excited about the new hardware about new games about the new opportunities even outside of the gaming space like with movies and stuff but I think they're terrified that their best efforts could be in vain if they take just enough missteps they're terrified of a Wii U following success with a failure the quotes from Furukawa talking about how careful he is going forward seemed to reinforce that to me and if they're feeling nervous about that transition they need all the good PR and good will they can get that might feel overly simplistic to say but they do not want a repeat of the last time I think they'll throw everything in the kitchen sink at this console launch going well the infamous parts from the lead up to the PS3 and Xbox One were not about the consoles themselves but about how expensive the PS3 was and about the always online nature of the Xbox One and also how expensive it was and the Wii U was legitimately a cool console conceptually and made some really interesting gaming experiences but the messaging and marketing around it were all over the place and the 3DS relied on a 3D feature that people weren't super stoked on couldn't be used by kids under seven part of its Target demographic and again cost too much the trend here is that every one of these failures besides the 3D issues weren't to do with the consoles themselves but decisions around their positioning and lead up to release Goodwill and PR is going to be instrumental and also I don't think they want to Port switch games to the next gen and resell them the insane sales of games across the switch show how Evergreen a lot of their titles are it would benefit them way more to continue that momentum with the existing games that can keep being sold alongside new titles and continue to reintroduce their franchises of old that haven't been as Evergreen to bolster their library and options of Ip to dip into throughout their future years the great word of mouth and success of Metroid Prime remaster and Pikmin 1 and 2 and Advanced Wars reboot camp and so on they have an opportunity and shouldn't want to squander it going into the next generation is not just a question of selling new hardware to new people it's not selling a switch it's a question of selling the hardware to people who don't play Nintendo games a little bit and mostly is asking how do we get over 100 million switch owners to put away what they've spent their time and money on for up to seven years and buy a new probably similar luxury item it's not an easy ask but I think the simplest solution is to make it as simple as possible we're all used to getting new phones opening the box setting it up in 30 minutes or so and picking up where we left off you know maybe trying out a newer better camera and some apps running better battery life lasting longer and all that stuff but this is the essential experience that Nintendo could tap into so to paint the same kind of picture as before here's why I think Nintendo will have backwards compatibility on the switch too firstly every handheld they have made at least within the launch window has had backwards compatibility and they've creatively problem solved to ensure that that was possible even when it was probably inconvenient it seems incredibly important to them that their huge install base continues to be catered to as they move into the future and don't want to segment their Market if they don't have to Nintendo accounts we know will move forward and it seems games probably with them also it's the industry standard and they know it and it benefits their transition into the next gen to be backwards compatibility additionally their Evergreen titles can keep holding them up and new ones alongside them and lastly it's really important that this success of the switch is carried forward to keep growing their business especially as a seamless transition will greatly help sell the console in this day and age in my mind this was gonna be a quick video but here we are I think this is a really interesting topic obviously um so if you consider sharing this with your friends who are into switch stuff and get their thoughts on it that would be awesome also if you're not subscribed I'd love it if you would AJ and I typically make videos once a week on lots of Nintendo stuff so if you're into that you're in the right place also leave some comments down below say nice things or no you don't have to say nice things it's whatever you want but that would be great and the last things check out our patreon again you can get some more videos early some other stuff and like the video and all that good stuff all right I'll cut it off there peace and blessings

Channel: Re:Direct

Views: 1,853

Keywords: aj, parker, redirect, re:direct, direct, re direct, nintendo, nintendo direct, nintendo video essay, switch 2, nintendo switch 2, backwards compatibility, backwards compatible, switch 2 games, new nintendo games, nintendo 2024, backwards, compatible, nintendo next gen, tears of the kingdom, totk, switch 2 totk, next gen nintendo games, Switch 2, Switch 2 games, best switch games, switch 2 game, nintendo switch 2024, switch 2 leak, switch 2 rumor, switch 2 2024, switch 2 date

Id: wtZQ9RfEs5o

Length: 21min 52sec (1312 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 11 2023