Nintendo says its Switch successor will be backward compatible with Switch games

Nintendo hasn’t announced its Switch successor yet, but we do cognize 1 point for sure: it will beryllium capable to play existent Switch games, and person carryover for your Nintendo Switch Online services and account. The news was announced during Nintendo’s mid-year Policy Briefing, pinch further accusation promised “at a later date.”

Nintendo besides talked astir numbers for the existent Switch (PDF), noting that it sold 4.72 cardinal units successful the past 3 months, a driblet of 31 percent compared to the aforesaid play past year, but good supra erstwhile consoles 8 years aft they launched. That adds up to 146 cardinal Switch units sold, and a caller grounds for package income connected a Nintendo platform, which reached 1.3 cardinal units arsenic of September 30th, 2024. “More package has been played connected Nintendo Switch than connected immoderate different Nintendo hardware,” according to the presentation.

All 3 of the awesome console manufacturers person had spotty records pinch backward compatibility. Both the Xbox Series X and the PS5 are mostly backward-compatible. But since the modulation from the Wii U progressive going from discs to cartridges, the Switch is not. Playing a crippled from erstwhile Nintendo consoles astatine the infinitesimal is simply a usability of optimism, involving the dream that either Nintendo releases a remastered Switch larboard aliases brings the crippled to its Switch Online library, but that won’t beryllium the lawsuit this clip around.

Nintendo:

According to Nintendo, the Switch 2 (or immoderate it’s really called) is still connected schedule to beryllium revealed during this fiscal year, which runs until March 2025, without interrupting Nintendo’s existing relationship pinch complete 100 cardinal yearly Switch players.

The speech astir backward compatibility isn’t conscionable astir subordinate restitution but besides video crippled preservation. A report from the Video Game History Foundation recovered that complete 87 percent of games released earlier 2010 are “critically endangered” aliases unavailable for purchase. While Nintendo has brought immoderate of its backmost catalog to the Switch, location are still a batch of inaccessible games. Nintendo besides straight contributed to the expanding scarcity of older games by shutting down the Wii U / 3DS e-shop past year.