Nintendo Possibly Hints Next Console Will Have Backwards Compatibility - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 February 2022 / 3,619 Views
Nintendo in its latest earnings report confirmed the VGChartz report the Nintendo Switch has outsold the Nintendo Wii, as well as the original PlayStation. Nintendo has shipped 103.54 million Switch consoles as of December 31, 2021.
Nintendo during a Q&A session today reported by Analyst David Gibson via Twitter might have hinted the successor to the Nintendo Switch might support for backwards compatibility.
Nintendo was asked the number of players on the Switch and how that will work into Nintendo's plans for its next console. Gibson says Nintendo is looking to expand grow its number of users leading into its next-generation console.
Q) How think about the 98m versus next console?
— David Gibson (@gibbogame) February 3, 2022
A) Into 6th year of Switch and we are maintaining momentum, we are looking at how to expand and grow this 100m users, leading into next gen device (sounds like next device will be backward compatible!) 7/
It might be several years before Nintendo releases its next console as Nintendo president president Shuntaro Furukawa stated the "Switch is just in the middle of its lifecycle and the momentum going into this year is good."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Honestly, I wouldn't expect any different. The Switch is the first Nintendo console in 20 years to lack backwards compatibility. GBA, DS, Wii, 3DS, and Wii U all had BC. The reason the Switch didn't is because A) it doesn't have two screens like the 3DS and B) it doesn't have a disc drive for Wii U. In addition to just general technology differences of course.
Unless the Switch 2 was some drastically different experience...this is just obvious
yes please.! will guarantee a purchase from me.
BC is a must for me personally. Especially for the first couple of years of a console.
For all that is holy... DO IT!!!!!
-VIDEOGAME BC NINJA APPROVED-
This will hopefully be true, and I know a lot of people just expect it, but it still could be tricky. I don't think there is any question that Nintendo's next system will still use an ARM CPU design, since any current one (let alone future architectures) would be a world away in performance increase while still maintaining good battery life for a portable system. And by staying with ARM, it ensures an easy backwards-compat path on that side for Switch titles. But the GPU part could be hard. Switch uses a mobile GeForce "Maxwell" design, and NVIDIA doesn't really do mobile GPUs any more. Switching (no pun intended) to an ARM or ImaginationTech PowerVR GPU would be really difficult to get Switch games running properly. Of course - Nintendo has made a ton of money from Switch, and helped NVIDIA make a ton of money as well, so it stands to reason that Nintendo could hire NVIDIA to actually design a full-on mobile SoC exclusively for them. This would be the best path for them.
nVidia is still active with GPU's in the ARM space.
Active with the automobile side, but not mobile. And automobile SoC's can draw on pretty big electric batteries - I think the smallest wattage SoC NVIDIA has designed recently (within the last 4 years) is till 30-Watts+. A far cry the 2-4-Watts you need for something in the Switch.
Nintendo Switch uses a 15w TDP chip, that has obviously been underclocked and reduced in voltage.
You can do that with any chip.
Tegra X2 can offer 50% more performance at the same power.
Xavier has 10w-15w and 30w models.
Orin and Atlan are natural successors to Xavier which is targeting the same markets. (Automobiles, Embedded, Industrial, Signage etc')
They are all built for the same market. Same TDP's... But like all chips are scalable in clocks and power consumption.
RTX 3050 and the slightly cut down MX 570 give us an idea of what Nintendo could be doing in a couple of years with a smaller node than Samsung 8nm.
Maybe no ray tracing features, but capable of modern super sampling techniques.
We’re starting to see TSMC 6nm and 5nm GPUs announced as well as Samsung 4nm in the mobile space which has qualities somewhere in between those TSMC nodes. Will be interesting to see what Nintendo goes with after they make those decisions this year.
It damn sure better. The days of clean generational breaks are long gone.
It had better. It’s a bare minimum standard of the industry now and lacking such a feature would be retrograde and anti customer.
I'm happy for backwards compatibility, but would be disappointed if the Switch 2 is just a Switch with more horsepower.
Well of course. Is anyone expecting the successor to not be backwards compatible?? I think everyone is assuming it will be. I'm expecting a fairly straight up successor like a Switch 2 which will obviously be backwards compatible, though I'm sure they will add in some sort of new thing like VR or something.
Obviously every Switch game needs a 4k/60 or 120hz patch, so backwards compatibility would really make sense since an obvious upgrade for all those games is easily achievable.
I wouldn't interpret it this way. Maybe Nintendo is only interested in new NNIDs which can then be used in their next device. It's also possible that only digital games can be transferred to their next system.
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