Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

@skywake @Magician I thought of it as a nice to have feature, rather than must have. i was unsure if it was a software or hardware issue. If the cart was capable of it, you'd only write to it a few times.

I wouldn't want it at the expense of making carts as cheap as possible or their reliability.

Only 20 years? That makes me wonder about the expected lifespan of physical versus digital. So far you can still redownload owned digital Wii games 17 years after launch. Not that I have actually played either my physical or digital games on Wii for a couple years. 🤔 Too many Switch games.

Different topic — it would be super nice if Switch 2 had a dock which also fit Switch so we don't have to have tons of things plugged into our tvs. I want to be able to just swap them.

@MarioBrickLayer
I don't think it's a reliability thing or even a cost thing. It's more just entirely unnecessary when there's a better method of storing data available. The DS had some storage on the cart because the DS itself had no storage. The 3DS had storage on the cart because 3DS cartridges were basically just DS cartridges running at a higher clock speed. With Switch the cart is subtly different, there was no need to keep the writable section

@FishyS
Technically the dock is just a display port to HDMI adapter with a USB hub. The Switch OLED dock already does HDMI 2.0 vs the OG Switch dock which was HDMI 1.4, even if the Switch OLED doesn't support HDMI 2.0 modes. So I see no reason why they wouldn't just continue with the Switch OLED dock

The rational move would be to make this new hardware compatible with the old docks. The old hardware shouldn't have an issue going forward into the new dock either (the OLED dock already is this). The only downside would be that if you put "Switch 2" into a day 1 Switch Dock you're not going to be able to do HDR, VRR or 4K/60. Which may or may not be an issue depending on the game. With that said, knowing Nintendo they're probably going to make it physically incompatible just for the sake of selling you the dock again

I’ve seen people online lose their minds over backwards compatibility for the next console. A lot of those people also believe in that VGC rumour that Fall 2024 is the release window for the next Nintendo console. So lets play make believe for a while and say that report is true. It also stated that the next console uses cartridges, right. Well in simple terms (it’s already quite simple), it may potentially be a 3DS backwards compatibility move in which the new cartridges have a little curve or something extra added so that it can be placed in the new console, but not the switch. Said slot would also have switch cartridge reading built in additionally. And even if the next console didn’t have backwards compatibility, what would happen exactly? All the folks moping and whining online will say their piece about how they “are boycotting nintendo! They’ve become so greedy and evil, I hate them so so much!!!!” And then those same people will probably buy the console day 1. Nintendo’s profits won’t fall 100% magically overnight as a result, and no Patrick, the world won’t end of backwards compatibility isn’t available right off the bat, or even at all either. Switch wasn’t BC with Wii U, still sold gangbusters. You get lots of money from rereleasing switch games too. But come on now, nintendo is releasing a brand new 2D mainline Mario game for the first time in 9 years. They want it to do well. It will either be ported immediately to the new console when the time comes, or the new hardware is indeed backwards compatible. I’m not sure what the fuss is. (Note, not all of Nintendo’s fans are like this. Just those specific twitter/YouTube folks.)

Wii U is a good example of Nintendo in fact losing lots of money because of bad decisions. The bad decisions in that example wasn't about back compatibility, but for 'Switch 2', I think not having BC would be a good example of a bad decision which could lose significant amounts of money. As someone who comments on forums on this website I am basically by definition not a typical Switch user so my own opinion has to be taken with a grain of salt, but personally I will buy Switch 2 day one if it has back compatibility and if it doesn't I may not buy it at all or at the very least not in the first year or two. I don't want to have to juggle multiple similar consoles and I don't want to 'lose' my old games so the easiest way to do that if there wasn't back compatible would be to stick with my current system. I want an upgrade, not half upgrade/half downgrade. Honestly my backlog is long enough to game until the generation after Switch 2 anyways. 😝

Also note that a lot of people who bought Switch were upgrading from Wii, not from Wii U. That was 11 years in-between so compatibility wasn't as urgent of an issue and also Switch versus Wii was overall a larger upgrade than we expect to see between Switch and Switch 2. People are more willing to forgive losing BC if everything else is so new and different that you wouldn't necessarily even expect BC.

Edit (just thinking). If, rather than Switch 2, Nintendo spat out something completely different like a tv-only digital-only 10 pound dodecahedron controllable only by Power Glove and with optional 3D-ification wire mesh tv attachment, I personally wouldn't complain about lack of back-compatibility. I also wouldn't buy it day 1 because I would be like 'what the heck', but I might or might not buy it eventually. In that case it would just be a totally seperate thing, not a Switch upgrade. Note that although I'm not a typical Switch user I'm at least a somewhat typical Nintendo-console-buyer in that I never owned a Switch U; some people will buy Nintendo consoles no matter what, but the majority of people won't.

I think there are way too many people who think they are experts because they listened to a podcast. But are incapable of any kind of understanding or independent thought. Or any understanding of the fact that technical challenges are pretty much never a "this isn't possible" but more of a "how much do we want this"

With backwards compatibility the only real hurdle is whether or not the new hardware will be able to verify the purchase of the game. There are hurdles before this for sure but ultimately this is the thing that makes it impossible. With the Wii U to Switch transition verifying physical purchases was not possible because adding a full sized optical drive to a portable console would have been stupid. And before you whine about different architectures and blah, blah, blah. I mean sure. But Wii U games exist on the Switch already. It would have been technically possible if they could verify purchase

With this next transition? That final hurdle doesn't exist because there's no reason why they couldn't support the physical Switch cart. So it's possible. So lets step back and consider the other hurdles

For architecture, what we know of this new SoC is that it's going to be VERY similar to what the Switch has. With the Wii U -> Switch they went from PPC and a Radeon GPU to ARM + Nvidia. This time they're going from ARM + Nvidia to ARM + Nvidia. Assuming their OS is sensibly similar, and it would be because not doing that would require effort, code compiled for Switch should run. The notable exception is the change in GPU micro-architecture and the addition of new features. So lets consider that by asking.... why does that even matter?

A Switch game is just a collection of files. That's all it is. One of those files is the GPU driver binary which won't work with hardware other than the Switch. So what? Don't load it. Load the correct one. Load it in a container that translates to the new driver. The game files don't control how the game loads, the OS does. Recognise that it's a Switch game and load it differently

Ultimately whether or not there is backwards compatibility will depend on whether or not Nintendo feels it is worth it. It won't be a technical reason because there are ways around it. And I'd argue that despite the volume of remasters re-releases on Switch I don't think Nintendo really wants to start from scratch again. They want people to walk into the shops on the day this hardware releases and pick up a stack of games. The easiest way to have a stack of games available from day 1? Backwards compatibility

Backwards compatibility from Switch 1 to Switch 2 could be an easy solve.

The question is whether Nintendo care about their fan base enough to decide to offer it.

Nothing says Nintendo, for certain, won't kneecap their customers and ask them to buy again.

@Magician
Of course there's nothing stopping them from shutting the door even if it was technically trivial. They could have fairly easily allowed Gamecube games to run on the Wii U, either through physical compatibility or through the VC, but decided not to. They could have recognised digital purchases between 3DS and Wii U and carried them through to Switch but they didn't. So they could 100% just decide that backwards compatibility isn't worth the effort

But between the rumour about Pokemon being patched for the new hardware and Ubisoft's CEO talking along similar lines? Then also the fact that there are over 4000 Switch games and, by definition, this new console starts with 0. That and the fact that it's a solvable problem? I think backwards compatibility is more likely than not

I mean consider this. What value would the Steam Deck have if you couldn't play titles from the existing catalogue of Steam titles? Absolutely nothing. Would be about as valuable as the original NVidia Shield that sold itself on its ability to play games ported to Android. Hardware only has value if there's software to run on it and there are over 4000 Switch games

And here comes the beginning of crap rumours. Doubt Nintendo showed or talked about the next console to press. Developers and publishers sure I expected that to happen, but not press. Anyway expect even more rumours flying around than normal it seems.

@FragRed i'm sure that rumour was doing the rounds a few weeks ago.

@MarioBrickLayer What was rumoured a few weeks ago was about devs being giving a showing of the hardware. What this guy is saying is the press too was shown and that’s just not the case.
@Stamina_Wheel Yeah there’s just no way the press would be shown the hardware before Nintendo officially announced the thing. Just makes no sense. I’ve also seen Andre of GameXplain criticise it too.

Does anyone else think that the addition of both Denuvo and the GameDriver tools this late in the console's life is an indicator of backwards compatibility being a fairly safe certainty, and that the real question should be if BC will be basic or have some level of enhancements?

Granted, I could also see the argument that this shows that a successor isn't as close as many of us may assume and that Nintendo is fully prepared to go a few more years on the same old Switch platform.

@ProPAIN I don't see how Denuvo has anything to do with backwards compatibility on Switch. It's a layer of DRM that taxes a platform's CPU and therefore...game performance. It's an anti-pirating measure that pirates usually take pride in cracking within twenty-four hours of any game's release that utilizes it.

@Stamina_Wheel Final Fantasy VII Remake on Switch 2? That's a bit difficult to believe. Sony has an Xbox-exclusion deal for the FF VII remake trilogy and FF XVI with Square-Enix. If they did that for Xbox, a platform with such a small following in Japan, I would have to imagine they'll do the same against Nintendo...the market leader in Japan.

@Magician Phil Spencer emphasized that it was an Xbox exclusion deal, not an exclusivity deal. If that wording isn't just smoke and mirrors like he usually uses, it suggests the game is only blocked from Xbox rather than being your typical PS console exclusive.

I've thought this ever since last year but Switch 2 will be eye opening regarding the nature of 3rd party PS exclusives. What is PS console exclusive meanwhile what is a combination of Xbox exclusion deals and Switch being weaker hardware?

Good lord, if Final Fantasy 7 looks like a PS5 game, I am absolutely going giddy at what Monolith are going to be creating! I mean, I would have been more than happy looking like a PS4 lol.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah there’s no way Final Fantasy 7 or anything in that franchise is coming to the Switch 2. But also this all sounds like a bunch of wishful thinking chucked together as “leaks” as if there’s any way they would know.

@Stamina_Wheel
New card format probably doesn't have much to do with the technology in the card itself. Would more be a way to force physical incompatibility with existing Switch hardware. Potentially they run it at a higher clock and potentially it has a wider bus. But as far as the hardware is concerned what NAND exists on a game card is immaterial. There's a controller in the middle, the console couldn't care less what kind of NAND it is as long as the controller responds to the commands

Also FF7 remake looking and running as good as the PS5. I mean, lots of potential for fuzzy comparisons here. Are we talking portable mode? What resolution? This is a game that has a 60fps frame rate cap it sits comfortably within while hitting 4K on PS5 from what I understand. 720p in portable mode with some settings chopped could well look and run "as good as the PS5"