I hope Nintendo Switch 2 loves old game cartridges Leave a comment

Nintendo’s subsequent console is imminent. I’m beginning to really feel uneasy. I fret the corporate will comply with a gem with a dud, just like the Wii being succeeded by the Wii U. (Or the Wii U Shld Probs Skip This 1, because it might need been higher named.) Also, I’m involved the corporate would possibly ditch innovation for the protected possibility of a Switch ‘Plus’ – a replica and paste job with MOAR POWAH. But my largest fear is whether or not Switch cartridges will work with the brand new machine. Because if not, it’s time to leap up and down on the Nintendo CEO’s noggin, like a hyperactive Mario monstering a Koopa.

On the final of these factors, there may be hope. Nintendo has introduced that “Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch”. Which sounds nice till you realise that might imply all types of issues. After all, NES software program is playable on the present Nintendo Switch. But you may’t shove a NES cart into one. I’m OK with that. But I wouldn’t be so joyful if our family’s stack of Switch cartridges* had as a lot relevance as Duck Hunt by early subsequent yr.

* And, sure, I know technically they’re game playing cards and never carts, however I don’t care. Don’t @ me.

Plug and pray

Nintendo has kind with regards to backwards compatibility. The Game Boy Advance line allow you to play unique Game Boy video games. Right up till it didn’t. And the Nintendo DS line adopted the identical sample, actually together with a GBA slot in every machine, till the DSi ditched that within the title of being barely extra streamlined. (And, let’s face it, reducing prices.)

On that foundation, the very particular wording of Nintendo’s announcement is troubling: that “Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch”. Take that actually and you may think about a situation the place eShop video games will run on Nintendo’s subsequent console, maybe with fancy upscaling shenanigans. But in the event you’ve obtained a Switch cartridge? Too dangerous. 

Perhaps we’ll all be invited to rebuy our video games on the eShop. After all, that’s extra beautiful cash for Nintendo, which moderately likes it while you purchase the identical video games over and over once more. And with the additional normalisation of digital because the default, there’d be much less of that pesky discounting/second-hand market/individuals having the audacity to offer a game to a pal to fret about. Things are a lot simpler (for Nintendo) when no-one truly owns the video games they play.

Avoiding a gaming graveyard

It’s unlikely Nintendo would go absolutely digital on a brand new console past ‘legacy’ video games – and I’d hope not. Digital video games are ephemeral. Once the shops you obtain them from are defunct and/or the {hardware} they reside on is lifeless, they’re gone. This is leaving holes in gaming historical past, as titles vanish into the ether. Physical media provides us an opportunity to protect video games for future generations to take pleasure in. And, for that matter, us as players to revisit in years to return.

I don’t need one more case like my favorite App Store video games surviving till the iPad Air they’re hosted on conks out. Or to finish up leaping by hoops to get iPod click on wheel video games on to a rescued machine. I a lot choose bodily media – but in addition for it to have better longevity by working throughout multiple era of console. I love that I can shove Tetris into my Game Boy Advance, or perhaps a 40-year-old cart right into a fashionable Atari 2600+.

Not that I’m suggesting I’ll be taking part in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in 2064, thoughts – assuming I’m nonetheless alive and vaguely coherent in an old-folk’s residence that belts out Underworld on a loop moderately than Vera Lynn. But it’d be good if I may not less than nonetheless play the cart on the Nintendo console being launched a couple of brief months from now. That’s certainly not an excessive amount of to ask.